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  | The Seville Communion
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 Even his worst works are better that others bests | ||||||
| In my opinion The Seville Communion (La piel del tambor) is the worst of Perez-Reverte novels. Nevertheless it deserves 4 stars because Mr. Arturo is playing in a different league and even his failures contain countless moments of magic.
The main handicap of the novel is his main character, Father Quart. The super-attactive, strong, charming priest working for a kind of Vatican Secret Service lacks credibility and his romance with the aristocratic lady is somehow predictable (remember the atractive symbology professor of The Da Vinci Code? It is the same kind of dull character). So, how can a novel stand the weakness of the main character? Response: thanks to a fantastic pleiade of secondary characters: The three villians are simply wonderful, the old priest is touching, the banker is charming. And then you have some pearls of Reverte's mythology, this peculiar mixture of History and adventure (better, this underlining of the adventures that History hides): pirates in the Cuban War, haunted barroque churches... this is the Perez-Reverte we love and this is what he is good at: treasures, war, puzzles and riddles. Reverte, leave the religious-love stories for those that lack your talent to tell a tale. The descriptions of Seville, its magic and charm, are also a good element of the book In any case, it would be worth to read this novel if only for two magic moments: the conversation of the two priests about Astronomy and the hilarious moment were the vilians are "set on fire". | ||||||
 Terrible characterisation | ||||||
| What a disappointment. Most of the main characters, aside from Priamo and the investigator, are entirely one dimensional and give you the sense of an author who filled out a character development worksheet (ok, this character wears silver bracelets, crochets a blanket for her long-gone trosseau, and has a spit curl) and then plugs in the appropriate details by formula over and over again. I finished the book and could list only two or three superficial details I knew about all three of the co-conspirators, the duchess, the banker, etc. The first few chapters were interesting but the promise quickly dissipated, to the point where I was skipping who paragraphs in the last chapter in an attempt to just finish the thing. NOT what you'd expect a reader to do in a suspense novel, but Arturo Perez-Reverte just doesn't make you care. I give it a two rather than a one star rating only because the character of Father Priamo is relatively well drawn and interesting. But it's hard to hold a book just on the basis of one character. This reads like the work of a mediocre college student. | ||||||
| An entertaining read | ||||||
| As one of Perez-Reverte's earlier novels, the characters are not quite as well fleshed out as they are in his later books. On it's own however, it is quite the entertaining read. The main character, Quart, comes across as a priest who doesn't think of himself as a priest so much as a 'soldier of the church' or a modern incarnation of a knight templar. As a result the reader experiences Quart's inner turmoil through his eyes as an unusual priest whose conscience seems to be lacking (or rather buried) so he can perform the 'dirtier' work of the church. Although not an inquisitor, he comes across more like a jaded detective focused only on his duty. Perez-Reverte's writing style is enchanting and draws you into the story creating rich visualizations of the church, it's parishoners, and it's custodians. Perhaps not as good as his later works, it still remains an intriguing story in which a careful eye can discern the emergence of a writer whose style is emerging and becoming more refined. A great read for anyone interested in church mysteries or a mystery set in modern Seville in Spain. | ||||||
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