The Club Dumas: A Novel

"A cross between Umberto Eco and Anne Rice. . . .Think of "The Club Dumas" as a beach book for intellectuals."
"--New York Daily News"
Lucas Corso, middle-aged, tired, and cynical, is a book detective, a mercenary hired to hunt down rare editions for wealthy and unscrupulous clients. When a well-known bibliophile is found hanged, leaving behind part of the original manuscript of Alexandre Dumas's "The Three Musketeers, " Corso is brought in to authenticate the fragment.
The task seems straightforward, but the unsuspecting Corso is soon drawn into a swirling plot involving devil worship, occult practices, and swashbuckling derring-do among a cast of characters bearing a suspicious resemblance to those of Dumas's masterpiece. Aided by a mysterious beauty named for a Conan Doyle heroine, Corso travels from Madrid to Toledo to Paris in pursuit of a sinister and seemingly omniscient killer. Part mystery, part puzzle, part witty intertextual game, "The Club Dumas" is a wholly original intellectual thriller by the internationally bestselling author of "The Flanders Panel" and "The Seville Communion."