Can Any one give me a sumary of the book Captain Alatriste?

Set during the Golden Age of Spain - the age of the painter Velazquez, the writer Cervantes and the poet Quevedo. Alatriste, a former soldier in the Spanish campaigns in Flanders, earns his living as an assasin for hire. He is engaged by the Inquisition to murder two English noblemen but smells a rat and declines to go through with his mission.

The novel is less interesting for what happens than for its sardonic description of the corruption in Spanish society during the Golden Age and the decay that ultimately would cause Spain to lose her position as a global power.

Now a movie (2006) with Viggo Mortensen in the eponymous role but for some reason does not seem to be going through to global release.