The Flanders Panel - Couverture souple

'A sleek and sophisticated mystery about art, life and chess...madly clever' New York Times

The clue to a murder in the art world of contemporary Madrid lies hidden in a medieval painting of a game of chess.

In the fifteenth-century Flemish painting two noblemen are playing chess. Yet two years before he could sit for the portrait, one of them was murdered. Now, in twentieth-century Madrid, Julia, a picture restorer preparing the painting for auction, uncovers an inscription that points to the crime. Quis necavit equitem? Who killed the knight? But as she teams up with a brilliant chess theoretician to retrace the moves, she discovers the deadly game is not yet over.

'Its intellectual background detail is reminiscent of Umberto Eco's novels...hard to stop reading' Times Literary Supplement

The clue to a murder in the art world of contemporary Madrid lies hidden in a medieval painting of a game of chess.

In a 15th-century Flemish painting two noblemen are pictured playing chess. Yet two years before he could sit for the portrait, one of them was murdered. In 20th-century Madrid, Julia, a picture restorer preparing the painting for auction, uncovers a hidden inscription in Latin that points to the crime: Quis necavit equitem? Who killed the knight? But as she teams up with a brilliant chess theoretician to retrace the moves, she discovers the deadly game is not yet over.