The Flanders Panel (1990)

Great novel! It's the third novel I've read by Arturo Perez-Reverte and I have to say, I think it's my favourite of the group. You can read my full review of the novel at my website (may contain some spoilers): http://bit.ly/izHB38 ( )

Read as a trashy mystery novel, there's really nothing objectionable about this, although for some reason, I was really expecting more. Especially galling was the villain, complete with a needlessly complicated, and mostly pointless, plan that seems to exist only so that the novel might exist. When the villain finally gives an explanatory monologue at the end, the rationale is, quite frankly, kind of offensive (and it feels unintentionally so).

The chess and historical subplots ended up seeming rather superficial. The chess, especially, seemed far too elementary to hang much of a plot on, while simultaneously being treated with far too much reverence and symbolic import by the characters. ( )

She busied herself preparing a vodka-on-the-rocks and suddenly smiled in the dark as she stood in front of the Van Huys. She had the odd feeling that if anything bad was going to happen, it would happen to someone else. Nothing bad ever happened to the hero, she remembered as she drank her vodka and felt the ice clink against her teeth. Only other people died, secondary characters, like Alvaro.

While restoring a 15th-century painting called The Game of Chess, restoration expert Julia discovers a hidden inscription which seems to have been painted over by the original artist. She enlists the help of antiquarian César and chess-player Muñoz in tracking down the solution to a 500-year-old murder mystery., but their quest leads them into danger, as they soon realise that someone else is interested in the painting and in playing the game to its conclusion. All the squares, my dear, are grey, tinged by the awareness of Evil that we all acquire with experience, an awareness of how sterile and often abjectly unjust what we call Good can turn out to be.

They discover unexpected connections between the characters in the painting, their reflections in the painted mirror, the game they are playing, the history of the real people who were depicted in the painting, and the lives of the modern-day people investigating the riddle posed by the painting, and the book is full of references to mirrors and art and how both can give the viewer a different perspective on a scene.

Unfortunately I did not find any of the main characters sympathetic at all and was not really concerned whether any of them would survive to the end of the story. Julia was cold and vain, always admiring herself in a Venetian mirror that she had been told made her look like a Renaissance beauty, and although I think the reader is meant to like César more than Menchu, they are quite similar characters, one a homosexual male and and other a heterosexual female but both are arch, artistic, middle-aged and serial seducers of beautiful young men. I am also not keen on the way that descriptions of the characters are constantly repeated throughout the book, with Muñoz's frayed collar being mentioned rather more than was necessary to make it clear that he didn't really fit into Julia's world. But as the story is seen from Julia's point of view, the constant harping on about frayed collars and too short skirts may be there to show how judgmental and dismissive Julia is about her friends and acquaintances.

Although I am not a chess-player myself (having really bad spatial perception which prevents me from holding a picture of the board in my mind and moving the pieces mentally), and I didn't warm to the main characters, the mystery kept me interested throughout. ( )

Don't even bother with this book. It goes nowhere fast. A long line of gross and pathetic characters fill the pages with boring details that lead to basically nothing. Intriguing idea, poorly executed. ( )

This is my first Pérez-Reverte book. I can't make up my mind whether I like him/would recommend him or not.The concept of the book ==> a game of chess paralleling the actions of the book's characters is quite interesting. The way the story evolves is well thought out and will keep you interested.My problem was with the writing itself. It did not quite catch me: maybe too verbose or maybe the translation just didn't capture the writers intent. ( )