Arturo Pérez-Reverte

The Flanders Panel

Mary Rose Luksha

I was into this book from the beginning. It evoked a bit of a noir-ish feel in the writing, I enjoyed the descriptions and discussions of art, it explained chess in a way I was able to grasp (I'm not a chess player), and hey I love a good mystery.

I read it in English and I found the translation to be lacking. The narrator would write something that sounded like an English cliche, but change a few of the words around. (I don't have the book or I would give an actual example, but here's a fake one: instead of 'tall, dark, and handsome' the narrator would say 'bigger than average height, with dark features, and attractive.')

And now the reason for two stars. I won't give spoilers, but suffice it to say that the revelation of the mystery was so unsubstantive, made no character sense, and I found it to be actually bigoted and intolerant.

The Flanders Panel

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