The Flanders Panel

Arturo Perez-Reverte

translated from the Spanish by Margaret Jull Costa
Harvill Press 1994
A book review by Danny Yee © 1996 https://dannyreviews.com/
In The Flanders Panel a young art restoration expert uncovers a concealed inscription in a 15th century painting. The resulting investigation leads her through some of the seedier parts of the art world and involves both a historical mystery and the game of chess. The game pictured in the painting leads to an analysis (with diagrams of almost a dozen positions), which starts to mirror her own life...

There are some neat characters and ideas in The Flanders Panel, but it contained too much philosophising for my liking. And none of its ruminations on the nature of chess gelled with my own experience of the game.

August 1996

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%T The Flanders Panel
%A Perez-Reverte, Arturo
%M Spanish
%F Costa, Margaret Jull
%I Harvill Press
%D 1994
%O hardcover
%G ISBN 0002712946
%P 295pp