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ReviewsSinister GambitsReviewed by David Surratt 11/3/02 Sinister Gambits: Murder and Mystery at the Chessboard - An Anthology, edited by Richard Peyton (Souvenir Press 1991). In the July 21st, 2002 issue of The Chessville Weekly I looked at a web site, Chess Stories, dedicated to short stories with chess-related themes. It must say something about my tastes in chess books that I chose another collection of such stories for this review, although this collection is the good old-fashioned (in more ways then one!) paper and ink variety. Bear in mind that one need not be a chess player or even know a rank from a file to enjoy this collection. For those of us who play, however, that knowledge of the game lends a certain intimacy to the enjoyment of these stories, as though there is a secret you share just with the author. Sinister Gambits is Richard Peyton's compilation of 17 short stores bearing chess-related themes, divided into three sections. The first section is Grandplayer's Nightmares, in which great players' dreams - and lives - are troubled by Caissa's demons. From Fritz Leiber's The Dreams of Albert Moreland, to J. G. Ballard's End-Game, this section delves into the tricks our minds can play when taxed past their breaking point. Or are they tricks? Beware The Three Sailor's Gambit! The second section of stories, Bizarre Chessmen, deals with chess pieces that seem to have a life of their own. In The Queen of the Red Chessmen in fact, they do come to life, while the pieces seem to be played by an unknown force in A Set of Chessmen. A particularly satisfactory genre for such authors as August Derleth, and Poul Anderson. The concluding section, Blood Chess, is devoted entirely to stories of bloodshed and death. What better sleuth to start the section off then, but Agatha Christie's famed Hercule Poirot in A Chess Problem. Other stories contain their own twisted games of death, including American Journalist Fredric Brown's The Cat From Siam, and British ghost story writer Herbert Russell Wakefield's Professor Pownall's Oversight. All of these stories were written in the 1800s & early-to-mid 1900s, and all bear the unmistakable style I associate with the writing of that era. Here's an example, from Alfred Noyes' Checkmate: "His shaking hand went out again mechanically. He 'castled' his king. A moment later he saw that the reply of black was made; and, strangely enough, it pulled him together. It was the reply of a practiced player who knew the latest analyses of the openings; and, by asserting the reign of reason to that extent, it gave him back his self-mastery. The be bewildered panic of his nerves was succeeded by an abnormal calm and an intense intellectual curiosity, to which he rallied all the slumbering reserves of his spirit. He knew, instinctively, that this game was fraught with consequences of terrible importance to himself; and those connected with him. He remembered what Huxley had said of the famous picture in which Retzsch depicted Satan playing at chess with man for his soul. He sat there, a modern counterpart of that man and of everyman. Modern, for his opponent was invisible; and perhaps he, too, might believe that instead of the mocking fiend, his opponent was a 'calm strong angel', who would rather lose than win. But always through his brain there was a warning echo. 'The player on the other side is hidden from us. We know that his play is always fair, just and patient. But also we know, to our cost, that he never overlooks a mistake.' He sat there, fascinated, spellbound. The game had become the only reality. It was the physical manifestation of his own relations with the universe. Everything else had become remote and unreal. The house was on a quiet street; and when a taxi-cab suddenly rattled past, it seemed a stranger sound to Martin than the witches' laughter of gulls among the remotest islands of the Hebrides. It seemed to come from an outside world with which he had little concern, and might soon cease to be concerned at all. He was at grips now with the inner realities; the imponderable things that move the world; the invisible, absolute, substantial powers to which sounds and colours and streets and taxi-cabs, and the distant glittering opera-house, where his wife and daughter (but not Maurice) were at this moment listening to the Pilgrim's Chorus, were merely shadowy appearances, external and superficial phenomena, a painted mask. He had forgotten this external world altogether. He bent over the board and concentrated his whole mind and will on it as he had never concentrated them on anything in his life hitherto, while the embers clicked on the hearth, and the little clock on the mantelpiece ticked unconcernedly - life, death; life, death; life, death." Ah, they really knew how to craft words together back then. Not to disparage more contemporary authors, this is just how my tastes run. Of course, not all of the authors write with this same style. Still, there is a comfortable feel about all of these stories; as if it should be raining heavily outside on a gloomy Saturday afternoon. I found these stories so much to my liking, that I wished each was a full-length novel by itself. I searched for online booksellers at EveryBookstore.com to see if Sinister Gambits was still available. I found used copies of it available in hardcover (the preferred medium for a wonderful book like this) for $4 at Half.com. A softcover version was available for $2.99 at 1Bookstreet. Other sellers were also available. Shipping, no doubt, is extra. Probably also, it might be found at your local used bookstore, or even a well-stocked library. Look for it in the Mystery section. Just don't look too closely, for too long, or in light too dim to protect against the dormant and sinister evil that awaits you. I: Grandplayer's Nightmares II: Bizarre Chessmen III: Blood Chess
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