A secret that could have changed the history of Europe is hidden in the chess game depicted in a fifteenth-century painting. Five centuries later, a young art expert, a gay antiquarian, and a peculiar chess player team up to unveil the mystery. They are all pieces in a diabolic chess game in which pieces are taken and players are murdered. "Paradoxes and puzzles abound. A sleek, sophisticated, madly clever, chamber mystery about chess, life, and art."—The New York Times Book Review