Captain Pantoja and the Special Service

From the Nobel Prize-winning author.

As this delightful farce opens, the prim and proper quartermaster Captain Pantoja learns that he has been selected by the army for a secret mission on Peru's Amazonian frontier. His pride turns to dismay, however, when he discovers that his orders are most unusual: to create a "special service" of women to quench the amorous longings of the recruits in the military's isolated border garrisons.

Pantoja, ever the model soldier, applies the best of his army training to the situation, and he soon has succeeded beyond anyone's expectations, whipping his corps into a military machine of unmatched discipline and efficiency. But despite his constant efforts at secrecy, his mission is somehow becoming better known than he—or his superiors—would like.

By turns sidesplitting and thought-provoking, Captain Pantoja and the Special Service tells of the complications that arise as word of the remarkable Captain Pantoja and his team of beautiful "specialists" starts to spread.