Captain Alatriste (novel)

Diego Alatriste [es] is a former soldier turned contract killer in Madrid. It is the early 1620s and he takes in the fatherless boy Iñigo Balboa. When Alatriste is tasked by the president of the Spanish Inquisition to team up with an Italian and kill two Englishmen who have arrived in the city, he becomes entangled in international intrigues and has to balance between different factions.^[1]

Kirkus Reviews described the book as a "pleasure of swash, buckle and atmosphere" with "tidy infomercials" about 17th-century Spain.^[1] Publishers Weekly called it "a winning swashbuckler" and "popular entertainment at its best", complimenting its pace and sense of time and place.^[2]