Rating: 
Summary: Lighter than "The Name of the Rose", intriguing to the end
Review: I rate this below "The Name of the Rose" and above "The Flanders Panel." Intriguing story, I never got bored, except with the older, jaded man/hard-boiled but still innocent young girl love affair. Always find those a little sleazy. Otherwise very readable, and the end a pleasing surprise, a dose of reality when I expected an occult ending.
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Summary: A Coast to Coast Book - Satanic Rituals & Alexander Dumas
Review: A decent airplane book. The protagonist is looking for a missing book for which its printer was burned to death at the stake during the inquisition. He learns gradually that the book he is seeking has the last bit of information needed to summmon the devil. He looks back in history to the Inquisition and into the pages of Alexander Dumas' derring do Three Musketeers serials in tracing and authenticating the copies available to him. Then he begins to notice that his search is beginning to look like a series of events and characters from Dumas' writings. The beginning of this mystery is not at all promising. Bedeviled with sensibilities that are distasteful to many, including a scene in which the protagonist decides that a woman is interested in sex because she has large breasts, or, smokes in the presence of antiquarian books, the novel keeps the pages churning because the plot line is compelling. Aside from data dumps, such as a pages long list of antiquarian books, there is fascinating information about the methods of acquiring and authenticating the books. The passions of collectors weave into the plot, as do the dark presence of the devil him/herself. In addition, the European feel for connection to centuries old history is skillfully woven into the scene setting, as when, in passing, a present day Paris apartment that has a view to the Seine is noted by the author to also have had a view of the public burnings during the Inquisition. Nevertheless, the mystery itself is enriched by a plot within a plot device, providing both an interesting puzzle and a dramatic ending. Aside from a more sensitive touch in sex scenes, one can ask little more of this genre.
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Summary: I had no idea what I was getting into
Review: When you start reading this book, it takes you a while to realize everything is actually happening in the XXe century. The prose, the characters, the enigma makes you wonder if you have not fallen on an old classic. The author has this way of joining future and past that is highly surprising and effective. This is not a mystery novel. This is a literary novel. The presence of the mystery seems there only to support a chase for a book, but it is at the same time refreshing. This book made me want to go back to my old bookshelves and get out all the Dumas I could find to read them again... with a new perspective.
Rating: 
Summary: If you like erudite you'll love this
Review: As in all the best mysteries, the final revelation -- Aristotle's 'anagnoris' -- is deferred until the very last sentence: "And everyone gets the Devil they deserve." For Varo Borja, millionaire book dealer, he is the traditional horns-and-pitchfork being with highly desirable powers and a knack of cheating even his most ardent and erudite disciples just when they thought they were about to join in the devilry. For the protagonist, the Devil is a girl rising 20 with long limbs, an unseasonal tan and a knack, only lightly sketched in, for what men like Lucas Corso like most in a woman. Then there's another, equally convoluted plot line that gives the book its title. Intrigued? Then you'll gobble up this and its companion piece, The Flanders Panel, and be slightly irritated that Drumhead T and The Fencing Master won't be available until February and March next year. Turned off? Maybe Ed McBain is more your idea of a diabolical murder mystery.
Rating:
Summary: A thinking man's mystery noir combined with Sherlockian elan
Review: This book is a true book lover's treat. An intelligent mystery noir set in both the drawing rooms of rich Spanish book collectors, and in their back alleys where some deals need to be consummated. Enter Corso, a reluctant Indiana Jones of the literary set, and erudite mercenary of the written word. Corso is hired to verify the bona fides of a text attributed to Dumas, and becomes involved with the search for a Satanic manuscript. The manuscripts themselves are mysteries, as is the beautiful young girl who acts as his guardian (angel?)... well, at any rate, guardian. Then there's the buxom blonde and the dark stranger with the dueling scar, and the three musketeers, the friend who may or may not betray him, and all the dead book collectors, and; anyway, you get the picture. As I said, this is an intelligently written book and is not written for mystery fans per se; it was written to raise the genre to the level of literature, and here it succeeds on many levels. One of my favorite parts is a rewrite of Moby Dick that begins "Call me Queequeeg" and refutes Ishmael's flowery view of whaling. This is a great book, but one I could only recommend to those with a love of literature as well as mystery.
Rating:
Summary: Haute Latin noir -- how can you resist?
Review: Consider: Cigarettes, Bols gin, drop-dead blonds, and biblophilia...in Portugese. All this is set within the elite class of a Spanish culture -- refined and erudite, with a tinge of Bohemia. It is noir of a distinctly different flavor and appealing on that basis alone. But the author also blends in facinating tidbits about the world of the written word, both physical and meta-physical. All this combines to successfully generate a strong sense of place and mood -- the signs of a fine story in the Chandler tradition. Sadly, the Club Dumas also suffers from the standard Chandler downfall -- the fizzling plot resolution. And, in fact, the ending of the book comes as an anti-climax. But go back and read the passages about bookbinding and Alexander Dumas and the cafes. These are the true pleasures of this book.
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Summary: A book lover's mystery
Review: If you love books and mysteries and insecure anti-heroes, you'll like The Club Dumas. It's a stylish, noir thriller set in the world of European antiquarian book collecting spiced with a bit of devil worship. What more could you ask for on a rainy day?
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Summary: Dumas lovers - a Sherlockian tale for you
Review: The author, Arturo Perez-Reverte, certainly has his facts straight about Alexandre Dumas. He also has his facts straight on serialization, book binding, old books on satanism, and probably many things I did not catch, as I'm not an expert on certain subjects in the book. It's dark - but then, any book that dealt with secret societies, authors burned at the stake by the Inquisition, murders that might or might not be suicides, and being paid to steal valuable and rare books on demonology, should be dark. I enjoyed it, mostly because I found so many bits and pieces that agreed with things I already knew, making it feel almost like fact, not fiction. It reminded me of Christopher Marlowe, actually. The book does contain unnecessary sex and some necessary violence. I didn't notice much swearing, so if it's included, it's appropriate.
Rating:
Summary: Even if you don't care for mysteries, try this thriller.
Review: I don't like mysteries much, but for any bibliophile, this intellectual thriller--so deftly rendered that you'll forget it's a translation--keeps a lively plot, a disreputable but acerbically engaging protagonist, and some moving descriptions of both the love of books and the plights of those trapped by desires textual and otherwise rapidly moving towards a fitting climax. Couldn't help but wonder if there will be a sequel, given the ending scene. It's slow in the beginning, but picks up once Corso's pursuit takes him into the haunts of other collectors of rare and diabolical tomes. I found myself skimming the Dumas descriptions, and never became engaged by the swashbuckling genre as presented here, but the Eco-like investigation into the demonological world provided for me the book's real pleasure. And a lust for books energizes this enjoyable intellectual chase.
Rating:
Summary: Club Dumas' mysterious bibliophilia.
Review: The Club Dumas is a superb crossbreed: both high literature and popcultural mysterious noir. In a genre-bending dance, The Club Dumas even succeeds in crossing the bounds into non-fiction, for the information and depth of detail presented concerning the antiquarian trade and lifestyle is fascinating in and of itself. This is one of the hallmarks of his craft: blending artistic prose and dark, brooding, memorable characters with remarkable research to bring to life these worlds otherwise out-of-reach to the common man. The action is intense, with the mystery, the characters, and the storylines within storylines so intricately woven, that all readers will easily find themselves drawn along into this dark, frighteningly real, yet so surrealistically noir-ish as the give Dante a run for the Inferno, journey. There is something for everyone, and most importantly, the book triggers bibliophilia, that is the non-reader will want to continue reading, and the advanced reader will want to read deeper
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