Even though it was first published in 1988 and I'd seen the book on a number of occasions I'd only recently decided to read it even if I didn't really know what the book was all about. I guessed it probably had something to do with Chess.
And surprisingly, it did. Following two stories, one in the aftermath of the French revolution and one in the early 1970s, a mystery surrounding an old chess set is brought to light in a The Da Vinci Code manner. Obviously though, this book came way before TDVC.
I find it hard to really formulate my opinions on this book. While it was entertaining for the biggest part, it was way too long and the story could have been told using several hundreds fewer of pages. I'm usually not a fan of the two intertwined past-present day story line type of story, but it didn't bother me in this case. However, I thought the 18th century one to be the most interesting by far.
What did bother me though was the very convenient use of historical characters in completely unlikely settings just to give the story a more historical feel to it. The moment Napoleon showed up I was like 'hahaha, NO'.
While in the last 25 years this book has gained some kind of cult status it left me with some mixed feelings.
Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!
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