Of Gothic Puzzles, Old Books and Mysteries : THE CLUB DUMAS by Arturo Perez-Reverte; Translated by Sonia Soto; Harcourt Brace & Co. : $23, 362 pages

In 1667, a year when the bonfires of the Inquisition were still blazing, Aristide Torchia was dragged onto a plaza in Rome and burned at the stake. The Venetian’s crime? Printing copies of “The Book of the Nine Doors of the Kingdom of Shadows,” an ancient text said to contain the secret for summoning the devil.

In that same year in Flanders, a French musketeer was promoted to the rank of general. His name? Charles de Batz Castlemore, whom Alexandre Dumas Pere would immortalize as d’Artagnan in “The Three Musketeers.”

Just a coincidence of history, perhaps, but the fact that Torchia dies in the same year as the real-life d’Artagnan’s promotion weighs heavily on the mind of Lucas Corso, the gruff mercenary hunter of rare books at the center of Arturo Perez-Reverte’s delightful novel, “The Club Dumas.” Perez-Reverte, who pleased critics with “The Flanders Panel,” a tale of murder linked to a 15th century painting, again shows his knack in “The Club Dumas” for creating a story that should appeal to anyone with a love of gothic puzzles, old books and mysteries.

Like many a detective before him, Corso tumbles into a bizarre mystery that somehow joins the lives of Dumas and the engraver Torchia. His troubles begin when he accepts the relatively simple job of authenticating a manuscript owned by the recently widowed Liana Taillefer, an icy, voluptuous blond. Her portfolio contains 15 pages of the original manuscript of “The Three Musketeers.” The pages have been written in two different hands, on two kinds of paper. It’s a puzzle that whets Corso’s appetite: What’s going on? Was Dumas a charlatan? Did ghostwriters write for him?

On the heels of this job, he is enlisted by Varo Borja, a wealthy Spaniard obsessed with the black arts, to check his copy of Torchia’s book against two other existing copies in private collections.

Cynical, cool in tough situations, Corso’s a fearless sleuth who profits from wealthy people’s literary fetishes. Soon on his errand for Borja, Corso finds himself followed by a scarred henchman and Taillefer herself. What do they want? Their pursuit forces him to look for links between the Dumas manuscript and Torchia’s book. “Your imagination is playing tricks on you,” one book critic warns. Corso’s search leads him to Portugal and then to Paris, where gradually the secrets behind the satanic book and the Dumas manuscript crystallize. It is an intricate, byzantine search--and one that’s completely engrossing.

Perez-Reverte loves the cliches of detective fiction. All the character types are present in “The Club Dumas”--the hard-boiled, lone-wolf detective, his bumbling friend who complicates matters, a femme fatale and remote, powerful forces that are ultimately responsible for the murders occurring after Corso contacts the owners of Torchia’s other copies. But Perez-Reverte has also improved on the detective story, taking the often predictable formula and convoluting it with delicious material about eclectic aspects of the literary world.

We learn about book forgery from a pair of smug bachelor brothers (use paper dated from the time period, they advise, or good paper washed in tea will give that ancient look too). We learn about Dumas Pere’s world, as Corso pursues both investigations--Dumas’ rapid composition with co-writers, seated side by side, while a horseman waited to rush installments to his publisher. Nine engravings in Torchia’s book, which resemble the figures on Tarot cards, are reproduced for us to puzzle over as Corso interprets them.

Not content with simply pushing the plot along toward a single, inevitable climax, Perez-Reverte makes the ride immensely enjoyable. By the story’s end, we can claim what is engraved under one of Torchia’s pictures, Nunc scio--Now I know. And yet, some things are left unsaid because, thankfully, Perez-Reverte knows the best mysteries are those that persist.