War photographer Andrés Faulques has retired to a seaside village to begin the painting of a mural, a collage of battle scenes both historical and modern. Haunted by the atrocities he has witnessed and the death of his colleague in a roadside attack, the reclusive artist is surprised by a visitor, a vaguely familiar man who claims to know him. The visitor is a former Croatian soldier whose photo Faulques took in the aftermath of a devastating battle – a seconds-long shutter click that Faulques had long forgotten – but his family was murdered and his life destroyed as a result of the publication of the photo. He has tracked down Faulques to make the photographer understand how that instant changed his life, and to seek his revenge by killing Faulques.
The Painter of Battles is both a story of suspense and a meditation on the nature of violence, responsibility, and the balance between fate and choice. Pérez-Reverte writes with beautiful language, dense philosophy, and disturbing images of modern war and human nature. The author worked as a war correspondent before achieving success as a novelist. His other works include The Queen of the South, the saga of a Mexican woman who becomes the leader of an international drug cartel; the Captain Alatriste novels, a historical fiction series about a seventeenth-century swordsman; and the literary mystery The Club Dumas, parts of which were adapted into the film The Ninth Gate. - Michelle
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