Excerpt from What We Become by Arturo Perez-Reverte, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"Anything of importance happening in the world?" Hugentobler inquires.

A rustle of newspapers in the backseat of the car: pages leafed through absentmindedly. This was a remark rather than a question. In the rearview mirror, Max sees his boss's eyes directed downward, spectacles perched on the end of his nose.

"The Russians haven't dropped the A-bomb, have they?"

Hugentobler is joking, naturally. Swiss humor. When he is in a good mood, he often tries to joke with the servants, probably because he is a bachelor, without a family to laugh at his funny stories. Max gives a professional smile. Discreet and keeping the proper distance.

"Nothing much, sir: Cassius Clay has won another title, the astronauts on Gemini XI have returned safe and sound. . . . The war in Indochina is heating up as well."

"You mean in Vietnam."

"That's it. Vietnam . . . And in the local news: the Campanella Chess Contest is about to begin. Keller versus Sokolov."

"Good heavens," says Hugentobler, dismissive and sarcastic. "How sorry I am to miss that. . . . There really is no accounting for taste, eh Max?"

"How right you are, sir."

"Imagine spending your whole life poring over a chessboard. That is how those chess players end up. Crazy, like Bobby Fischer." "Indeed."

"Take the low road. We have plenty of time."

The crunch of gravel beneath the tires ceases as they pass through the iron gate and then the Jaguar begins to roll gently along the asphalted road through groves of olive, gum, and fig trees. Max downshifts effortlessly as he comes to a sharp bend, at the end of which he glimpses the calm sea, glittering like polished glass, silhouetting the pine trees and houses clustered on the mountain, with Vesuvius on the far side of the bay. For a moment he forgets his passenger and concentrates on the pleasure of driving, the movement between two places whose location in time and space is of no consequence to him. The air wafting through the open window smells of honey and resin—the lingering aromas of summer, which in that part of the world always refuses to die, engaging in a sweet, ingenuous battle with the calendar.

"It's a beautiful day, Max."

Max Costa blinks, collecting his thoughts, and once more glances up at the rearview mirror. Dr. Hugentobler is no longer reading the newspapers and has a Havana cigar in his mouth.

"Indeed, sir."

"I'm afraid the weather will have changed by the time I return."

"Let's hope not. You'll only be gone three weeks."

Hugentobler lets out a grunt, accompanied by a puff of smoke. He is a placid-looking man with a pink complexion, who owns a private clinic near Lake Garda. He amassed a fortune in the postwar years dispensing psychiatric treatment to wealthy Jews traumatized by the Nazi atrocities: the sort who would wake up in the middle of the night believing they were still in the barracks at Auschwitz, with Dobermans snarling outside and SS men shepherding them to the shower rooms. Hugentobler and his Italian associate, Dr. Bacchelli, helped them wrestle with their phantoms, and to round out their treatment recommended a trip to Israel organized by the clinic, after which they were presented with an exorbitant bill that allowed Hugentobler to maintain a house in Milan, an apartment in Zurich, and the villa at Sorrento with five cars in the garage. For the past three years, it has been Max's job to keep them serviced and to drive them, besides overseeing the general maintenance of the villa, whose other employees are a married couple from Salerno, the gardener and the maid, Mr. and Mrs. Lanza.

"Don't go straight to the port. Drive through the center of town."

"Very well, sir."

He glances at the accurate but inexpensive watch on his left wrist (a gold-plated Festina), and joins the traffic on Corso Italia, which is light at that hour. There is plenty of time for them to reach the motor launch that will ferry Dr. Hugentobler across the bay, sparing him the tortuous road to Naples' airport.

Excerpted from What We Become by Arturo Perez-Reverte. Copyright © 2016 by Arturo Perez-Reverte. Excerpted by permission of Atria Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.