Synopses & Reviews
A fifteenth-century painting by a Flemish master is about to be auctioned when Julia, a young art restorer, discovers a peculiar inscription hidden in a corner: Who killed the knight? In the painting, the Duke of Flanders and his knight are locked in a game of chess, and a dark lady lurks mysteriously in the background. Julia is determined to solve the five-hundred-year-old murder, but as she begins to look for clues, several of her friends in the art world are brutally murdered in quick succession. Messages left with the bodies suggest a crucial connection between the chess game in the painting, the knight's murder, the sordid underside of the contemporary art world, and the latest deaths. Just when all of the players in the mystery seem to be pawns themselves, events race toward a shocking conclusion. A thriller like no other, The Flanders Panel presents a tantalizing puzzle for any connoisseur of mystery, chess, art, and history.
Review
"Paradoxes and puzzles abound. A sleek, sophisticated, madly clever chamber mystery about chess, life, and art." The New York Times Book Review
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"Entertaining, taut, well-plotted." Elle
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"An inventive plot, gripping suspense, fascinatingly complex characters, and innovative incorporation of art, literature, and music will enthrall readers looking for something a little different." Booklist
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"A beguiling puzzle a game within a game within a game solved in perplexing but entertaining fashion." The Philadelphia Inquirer
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"[An] uneven but intriguing, multilayered thriller....[H]ighbrow pretensions aside the whodunit aspect of the narrative is resolved unconvincingly, with disappointing conventionality." Publishers Weekly
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"This intelligent mystery, blending art historical insight with the intellectual pleasures of chess, moves at a good pace and comes up with a satisfying twist at the end." Library Journal
About the Author
Arturo P+rez-Reverte is an internationally acclaimed author and his books have been translated into nineteen languages in thirty countries and sold more than three million copies worldwide. He was born in 1951 in Spain, where he still lives.
MARGARET JULL COSTA has established herself as the premier translator of Portuguese literature into English today.