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A review by dementomstie
The Tournament by Matthew Reilly
4.0
This was a pretty great book. It's strange to get a really good mystery from an author who I don't usually think of when I think of really good mysteries. Usually when I'm reading a book by Matthew Reilly I'm expecting at least one exploding helicopter. That would be very difficult to pull off in this book.
It's 1546 and a grand Chess Tournament is being held in Constantinople(it's not yet Istanbul). The nations of the world are sending their best Chess players to the grand city to take part in the tournament and King Henry also sends his daughter Elizabeth and her teacher Roger Ascham.
While at the titular tournament one of the ambassadors from the Papal States is killed, and it's up to Roger to investigate the crime.
What follows is a thrilling mystery filled with some pretty great twists and a little too much well described sex.
SERIOUSLY: There is a character that her entire purpose of the book is to show what it's like to be promiscuous in the middle ages. It's... annoying. I'm in the middle of an otherwise standard thriller, and out of nowhere: SEX SCENE all capital letters. If it hadn't been an audiobook I would have just skipped those parts because they didn't seem to move the mystery forward at all.
Overall I thought the book was pretty great, and it's a well written historical mystery with plenty of interesting characters and plenty of people to dislike so you don't mind them being stalked by a serial killer.
It's 1546 and a grand Chess Tournament is being held in Constantinople(it's not yet Istanbul). The nations of the world are sending their best Chess players to the grand city to take part in the tournament and King Henry also sends his daughter Elizabeth and her teacher Roger Ascham.
While at the titular tournament one of the ambassadors from the Papal States is killed, and it's up to Roger to investigate the crime.
What follows is a thrilling mystery filled with some pretty great twists and a little too much well described sex.
SERIOUSLY: There is a character that her entire purpose of the book is to show what it's like to be promiscuous in the middle ages. It's... annoying. I'm in the middle of an otherwise standard thriller, and out of nowhere: SEX SCENE all capital letters. If it hadn't been an audiobook I would have just skipped those parts because they didn't seem to move the mystery forward at all.
Overall I thought the book was pretty great, and it's a well written historical mystery with plenty of interesting characters and plenty of people to dislike so you don't mind them being stalked by a serial killer.