Usually, I can read a mystery in much less than the week it took me to
complete this one. They’re light and don’t normally require thoughtful
reading to get the plot, etc. But this one was pleasantly different.
Now on paper, the premise does sound fairly sappy. Sometime in antiquity,
ancient people made a powerful chess set that holds the key to some
mysterious formula. The set was owned by Charlemagne and then disappeared
from sight but not from memory. Two narrators tell the story of its
resurfacing and the measures taken to keep it out of the hands of those
wanting to use it for personal advancement. Surrounding the mystique of
the chess set is the number 8, which laid on its side is also the symbol
for infinity.

The first narrator is a nun in the abbey that part of the chess set has
been buried in for 200 years. The French Revolution is on and Marat has
learned of its existence. The abbess shuts the abbey and sends the pieces
individually away with trusted nuns, designating Mireille to be the locus
of the network. She watches the Terror, meets just about everyone
important in the whole mess and her story goes from there. Back in the
future, Catherine Velis is narrating the strange story of her involvement
with the chess set. She is a computer programmer/data analyst who dabbles
in painting and mathematics. On New Years Eve, a fortune teller reads her
hand and gives her a strange prophecy, which she, of course, promptly
forgets. She also has a figure eight described in the fold lines of her
hands. Strange things start happening, she meets a ton of interesting
people and her story goes from there.

Before I read this I really didn’t know more than the basic moves in
chess–nor did I wish to know more. But the book’s descriptions of the
mathematical properties of the game, the mathematics of music and
acoustics, and the use of numbers in mystical beliefs was fascinating.
Whether it’s actually true or not I haven’t a clue, but it made a darn
good story. Even switching back and forth between narrators wasn’t
cumbersome because the mystery was so riveting. I am definitely going to
seek out more of her fiction to see if it holds forth with the same
quality.