As a boy he had been known as "El Rubio," a ragamuffin pimp who made his few pesos leading sailors to his home, a waterfront bordello...

As a young man he was called Mario - handsome and experienced beyond his years in the debauchery and treachery of slave-trading Havana...

And then, suddenly, he was the Count of San Mateo - heir to a Spanish fortune - and bound for Spain to play the role of human stallion to a desperate, degenerate Queen...

The Tattooed Rood, a great new novel of a man branded with the terrible torture-mark of the Spanish Inquisition.