"Nothing betrays, so long after, the woman who for two years has been living alone by the sea with a dog and some books. What else, she decides, would be the impulse, or the desire, to remain embraced to that man forever. She doesn't know what will be in her head in a couple of hours, when the light of day clears her mind and illuminates her conscience more harshly. What is certain is that at this moment, without a doubt, she would wish to die if he were to die." In the years 1942 and 1943, during World War II, Italian combat divers sank or damaged fourteen Allied ships in Gibraltar and Algeciras Bay. In this novel, inspired by real events, only a few characters and situations are imaginary. Elena Arbués, a twenty-seven-year-old bookseller, finds one morning while strolling along the beach one of those divers, vanished between the sand and the water. In rescuing him, the young woman ignores that this determination will change her life and that love will only be part of a dangerous adventure.
Author
Arturo Pérez-Reverte Gutiérrez, is a Spanish novelist and ex-journalist. He worked as a war reporter for twenty-one years (1973 - 1994). He started his journalistic career writing for the now-defunct newspaper Pueblo. Then, he jumped to news reporter for TVE, Spanish national channel. As a war journalist he traveled to several countries, covering many conflicts. He put this experience into his book 'Territorio Comanche', focusing on the years of Bosnian massacres. That was in 1994, but his debut as a fiction writer started in 1983, with 'El húsar', a historical novella inspired in the Napoleonic era. Although his debut was not quite successful, in 1988, with 'The Fencing Master', he put his name as a serious writer of historic novels. That was confirmed in 1996, when was published the first book of his Captain Alatriste saga, which has been his trademark. After this book, he could leave definitely journalism for focusing on his career as a fiction writer. This saga, that happens in the years of the Spanish golden age, has seen, for now, seven volumes, where Pérez-Reverte shows, from his particular point of view, historical events from Spanish history in the 16th century. Apart from these, he also penned another successful works like Dumas Club and Flanders Panel, titles that, among others, made Pérez-Reverte one of the most famous and bestseller authors of Spanish fiction of our era.
