from http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/26/books/26masl.html The furtive figure slips quietly into the darkened house, dressed in mufti rather than in his usual swirling cape. He is armed lightly, with only oiled flintlock, sword and dagger. As he slips toward the bed of his sleeping prey, his aquiline profile and luxuriant mustache are visible by the shadowy light of an oil lamp. Holding a knife to the chin of his latest conquest, he asks: "Do you know who I am?" You bet we do. He is Capt. Diego Alatriste y Tenorio, the brooding, charismatic hero of Arturo Pérez-Reverte's wildly successful Spanish swashbuckling novels. He is profoundly cynical yet quietly principled, weary of battle yet ready to duel if he must. He is a man of few words but many melancholy gazes into the void. He has an iguana, his familiar, on one shoulder. See also, http://dragaera.info/mailinglists/archive.cgi/1/14015 http://dragaera.info/mailinglists/archive.cgi/1/2161 etc