Pérez-Reverte's novels are usually centered on one strongly defined character, and his plots move along swiftly, often featuring a narrator who is part of the story but apart from it.

The novels frequently deal with some of the major issues of modern Spain, such as drug trafficking or the relationship of religion and politics.

In his often polemical newspaper columns and the main characters of his novels, Pérez-Reverte frequently expresses pessimism about human behaviour, shaped by his wartime experiences in such places as El Salvador, Croatia or Bosnia.

[11] In a controversial article he compared the European refugee crisis with the barbarian invasions that led to the fall of the Roman Empire.

[14] Pérez-Reverte started his journalistic career writing for the now-defunct newspaper Pueblo and then for Televisión Española (the Spanish state-owned television broadcaster), often as a war correspondent.

He was a friend of Javier Marías, who presented Pérez-Reverte with the title of Duke of Corso of the Kingdom of Redonda micro nation.

On 10 November 1997 Murguía published a short story, titled "Historia de Sami", in the magazine El laberinto urbano.

Months later, in March 1998, Pérez-Reverte published a story in El Semanal, with the title "Un chucho mejicano", bearing close similarities in narration, chronology, phrases, and in the anecdote.

Pérez-Reverte's story was recently republished in a re-compilation for the text Perros e hijos de perra (Alfaguara), and Murguía noticed the plagiarism at that time.

In May 2011 the Audiencia Provincial of Madrid ordered Pérez-Reverte and Manuel Palacios, director and co-writer of Gitano, to pay 80,000 euros to filmmaker Antonio González-Vigil, who had sued them for alleged plagiarism of the film's script.