The Nautical Chart
A treasure hunt for a Jesuit ship sunk by pirates off the coast of Spain  is the plot on which Perez-Reverte's new novel turns, but a love story is the  real heart of this nicely crafted, carefully told adventure. A suspended sailor  happens on a maritime auction in Barcelona, where he meets the beautiful Tanger  Soto, a museum curator whose winning bid buys her a 17th-century atlas that may  reveal the final resting place of theDei Gloria. Coy, the sailor, is  totally smitten, so it's no surprise that he signs on to help Tanger track the  sunken ship to its grave in waters he's sailed since childhood. Enlisting the  aid of a diver friend, Coy and Tanger stay a few steps ahead of the crooked  salvagers who've been trying to get the atlas, outmaneuvering the attempts on  their lives and the efforts to keep them from the treasure. Perez-Reverte (The Fencing Master,The Club Dumas) is better at  plumbing the mysteries of the human heart than those of the sea, butThe  Nautical Chartmanages to combine history, suspense, and obsessive love in a  slow-paced but ultimately engrossing read.--Jane Adams