Review: Here's one for chess nerds everywhere! :D
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 08 2, 2011
(special thanks to the author for providing me with a review copy!)The Romani, best known to the world by the somewhat derogatory term "gypsy" (which is perhaps the only derogatory term ever that was started by the people who now find it insulting), are not often used well in fiction. Too often they are either presented as born criminals or as overly mystical; the European version of the "magic Negro". There's none of the former in this book and if there's a bit of the latter, well, it's forgivable.The novel tells the story of young Durriken Brishen, a Romani boy who lost his parents at an early age. All he has left are vague memories and a rather lovely chess set. He winds up in the care of a train engineer named Casey who treats him like her son. With her, he travels the rails and plays chess pretty much constantly.After entering, and winning, a tournament in Chicago, he finds himself stuck with Dilia, a girl he faced in the competition. His chess piece is missing a red queen. She has a red queen. Coincidence? Soon the two are on the run, trying to track down clues about Durriken's family and about the chess set.Meanwhile, in Romania, Durriken's grandfather, who believes the boy is dead, suffers a rather horrible accident and is nursed back to health by a farm woman while his personal rival, Radu Pinch, goes on a visit to the USA, his motives unknown...This is a good, solid young adult story, occasionally dragged down by really exacting references to chess moves. Now I played chess when I was a boy, and I've always found the game somewhat enjoyable, but I can only take so much of reading about it before I hit the "next page" button on my Kindle. I also thought the accident suffered by Durriken's grandfather was perhaps a bit unlikely.There's also the slight problem that the book takes place in the 1960s, but seldom feels like it does. It usually feels like it takes place about now. I believe this is the first time I've felt that a particular place in time was simply an informed attribute.That said, the characters are great and the non-chess descriptions are wildly entertaining. I also got very caught up in the story and really liked Duri and Dilia. I look forward to reading more about them!This is a good book for anyone about twelve or older. The violence isn't too severe, there's no sex and what little language there is isn't anything worse than what you can hear on MTV. This is a good, solid story, and I recommend it.