The Flanders Panel

Rating:
Summary: Just a good book
Review: It's seems great when a writer puts together in his book two things that I enjoy so much: chess and a thriller. Thus, "The Flanders panel" seemed irresistible. But once you get to read the book, it's not so much. I mean, I've read better stuff. Okay, the plot is very interesting: suddenly, a murder that took place five centuries ago comes to light again when a pretty woman whose job is to make old paintings look like they were brand new. She discovers a hidden inscription in a flamish painting with na enigmatic question about who would have killed the knight in the portrait. The chess part gets in because the refered knight and another high born noble of the time are playing the game, under the auspicious look of some very looked-for lady. Reaching the answer of who might be the killer, solving a mistery of half a millenium, the painting would double the given price in na auction. To achieve this, the pretty Julia and her gay friend, who in fact is na art-dealer ( my, what a lucky day! ), contact Julia's ex-lover and teatcher Alvaro. The things star to get bad when Alvaro is murdered. Then, to reconstruct the chess game using some kind of retroactive thinking, they call chess-fanatic Muñoz to help them. Along with the continuing murders, they have to deal with the auction house, who is interested in getting the royalties of the painting from Menchu, Julia's friend and owner of na art gallery. Besides, there are the family who in fact are the right owners of the oil. Other characters appear before the reader, such as Menchu's badboy lover, allways looking for easy money and some misterious blonde woman in a yellow overall ( Jesus! ). But of the three main characters, only one is interesting: the chess player Muñoz. It's really nice to watch him become another person completely different when confronted with a chessboard, loosing the boring face he wears through his entire life. Julia is the common pretty face that makes everybody look at her as na object na not a person; and her friend, th! e gay one, is completely out of fashion nowadays. He's that old kind of gay, who hates man unless they're in his bed. The great sequences of the reconstruction of the game, that grip the reader to the book, loose all effect when the end gets closer. Some thirty pages before the gran-finale, you figure out what the disclosure's going to be, but you keep reading and saying " No, that's not possible, let me read further and see if I'm miastaken". Oh, but you're not. The end will be the one you're thinking. Well, Mr. Reverte, you did write a cool book, but c'mon, you could've done better with the ending! Take a look at the motion picture "SEVEN", which has a totally unusual and surprising ending ( and the guilty one doesn't show up untill two-thirds of the story ).

Rating:
Summary: Don't Waste Your Time
Review: I read this book because it was compared to Umberto Eco's Name of the Rose. Turns out, however, Mr. Perez-Reverte isn't fit to carry Eco's breastplate (emblazoned with the Rosy Cross, of course). The characters are one-dimensional, the plot thin and the resolution so contrived and implausible it felt like I was reading the script for a TV movie. I wasn't surprised to read that the author is a tele-journalist. It shows. Anyone who compares this book with The Name of the Rose ought to be flogged the by the remaining members of the Knights Templar.

Rating:
Summary: A Genre Mystery - Nothing more
Review: The Flanders Panel is a decent genre mystery. I think the intellectual trappings - the thematic turns based on the painting, the chess puzzle - may have misled the publisher into trying for more than this deserved. It deserved a mass market, not a trade paperback. The comments here are right: the characterizations are superficial, and the portrayal of gay men made me uneasy. But this is just a slim mystery with some intellectual trappings, so I'll give it a star count on that basis. I give it three stars because the elements of the mystery were somewhat implausible, and because the obvious candidate wound up being guilty. The intellectual elements were entertaining, if half baked. As mysteries go, it was a decent read, nothing more.

Rating:
Summary: An engaging idea for a book; disappointing execution.
Review: I found the original chess problem disconcerting: the black c pawn has made two captures to get to the a column. Only 2 white pieces and 2 white pawns (one the h pawn) have been removed. I cannot rationalize the position of the black pawn as anything other than by capture of the two major pieces. Thus, a quarter of the way into the book I felt that the pawn captured the knight, rather than the black queen, and so I lost all faith in Munoz (their chess wizard). Can anyone rationalize the pawn configuration for me? Beyond that, the theme of the fifteenth century crime suggested by the painting got major play early on, but then was just dropped.

Rating:
Summary: Not as good as it seems
Review: Well, the first time I hear from the book I thought it was gonna be great. I had the book at home, so I began to read it (not very fast but...). It was great at the beginning (murders, a great scheme...), but the thing I hated the most was the final part (if you have read the book you can go on reading on but if not....), when the girl, the one you think at the beginning she's perfect steals the money and scape with his friend... So, I think the book has a good scheme but an stupid end.

Rating:
Summary: The chess problem was the only good thing about this book
Review: Even though some reviews have complained, the analysis of the chess problem was fairly convincing. If you assume that it is obvious whose turn it is because of the attitudes of the players in the painting, it is possible to deduce backwards two moves, and it was a very clever idea.

Rating:
Summary: amusing, not profound
Review: This is an entertaining book, based on an unusual premise: a chess problem depicted in a 15th-century painting is the clue to solving a 15th-century murder and also is the impetus for a series of 20th-century murders that follow the same denouement as the the chess game! The chess problem is well-done, although some important questions are, frustratingly, unanswered (have any pawns promoted?) or are difficult to find the answers to (whose turn is it?). The plot is sufficiently interesting, but the characters aren't - Julia is a remarkably uninspiring heroine. I actually preferred her trampy friend (I think, though the author might disagree, she intended to make those cultural malapropisms). Despite the weak characters, this is an enjoyable book; just don't expect something the as intellectual as "The Name of the Rose."

Rating:
Summary: Intriguing but......
Review: I found this book fascinating in concept with the game inside the game. It is a pity that the characters were so stereotyped and that the author had not thought of a more satisfactory ending. I took an instant dislike for Julia who if she really cared about the art work she was supposed to be restoring, she would not keep smoking all over it.

Rating:
Summary: A homophobic mystery.
Review: It is astonishing that a novel based entirely on stereotyped characters can be reviewed so frequently without any reference to that fact. This novel is based on a hateful view of gay men, explicitly describing them as angry not to be interested in women, and jealous of straight men for their relationships with women. The idea of the book -- chess integrated with the mystery -- is wonderful, but the execution poor. After all, unlike good mysteries, we never learn the one fact that explains the truth until the end of the book, so there is no opportunity for us to play along with the protagonist in attempting to solve the mystery. And, even though I enjoyed the read, the ultimate resolution is so hate-filled as to sour the rest of the book. Overall, exceedingly a poor novel.

Rating:
Summary: A pleasant read, but not great writing
Review: Stock characters, including one I'm getting tired of: aging gay man, expensively dressed, profoundly bored, and pretentiously well-behaved. Also, liberated (read promiscuous) young woman, aging rich woman and her pretty boys, etc. The plot is intriguing, but not really well developed. The outcome so ridiculous, it is hard to believe the author actually meant it. I think the author just ran out of interest in the characters and wound up the story as quickly as possible. Still, up to the end, it was more interesting than I expected.