The Painter of Battles

November 26, 2007
Novelist and former war correspondent Pérez-Reverte (The Club Dumas
; The Queen of the South
) adds another taut literary thriller to his critically acclaimed list. Andres Faulques, an award-winning war photographer, is holed up in a stone tower on the Spanish coast, purging his wartime memories by painting a battle-scene mural. He has abandoned photography and is also unsuccessfully trying to banish the memory of his lover, the brilliant, bewitching Olvido, also a war photographer, who was killed as Faulques watched. One day, a strange visitor, the Croatian ex-soldier Ivo Markovic (who turns out to be the subject of one of Faulques’s most famous photos), arrives with an evil agenda: he plans to kill Faulques, but first he wants to tell him how the photo altered the course of his life. (Let’s say it didn’t do him any favors.) Some readers may find the narrative slow—much of the novel takes place in Faulques’s head, with lengthy reflections on the atrocities he has photographed, the social responsibilities of artists and photographers, and the consequences of choice and chance—though others will relish the meticulous details and dark, brooding tone.

Starred review from January 15, 2008
Often called a master of the literary thriller for works like "The Club Dumas", Prez-Reverte is much more than that, and his talent has never been on better display than it is here. The author draws on his experience as a war journalist to craft a ruthlessly examined tale of moral responsibility. Former war photographer Andrew Faulques is holed up in a tower, where he's painting a mural displaying the human experience of war as filtered through the great war paintings. Then a stranger arrives and calmly announces his plans to kill Faulques; having been immortalized in one of Faulques's images as the face of Croatian resistance during the recent Balkan wars ultimately destroyed this man's life. As Faulques cautiously unfolds his story to his would-be assailant, we're brought uncomfortably close to human violence and questions of both culpability and sheer human evil, summed up tersely in one scene of Faulques lying in wait with a sniper to photograph his work. Faulques rigidly adheres to the notion of a universe run mechanically by rules beyond our control (as he tells Olvido, his lover and colleague, killed on the job), and the narrative's tension derives partly from wondering whether Faulques will ultimately retain these beliefs. With extraordinary imagery; highly recommended. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, "LJ" 9/1/07.]Barbara Hoffert, "Library Journal"

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