By Alex Robins (Mechanics’ Institute, San Francisco, California, USA)
Spy’s Mate is an engaging and fun novel that successfully combines historica! fiction, KGB intrigue, and the competitive world of international chess, marking a new genre that l’ve heard called “chesspionage”. Set during the waning years of the Soviet Union, the story follows a young, talented Armenian chess player, Yasha Basmajian. Throughout the novel, we follow Yasha, loosely based on Gary Kasparov, from his beginnings with his mother and making elementary mistakes – and victories – against his cousin Semyon, to his ascent in the chess world and world championship match with a sinister and Karpovesque Evgeny Volosin. The book successfully captures the tensions and culture of the royal game that we all love and will be a compelling read for any chess enthusiast.
Spy’s Mate is also remarkable in that it formally and stylistically stands apart from other chess fiction, which often misses the mark for me personally – maybe I get enough interaction with chess players at my day job. But, Spy’s Mate really is a chess novel as opposed to a novel about chess or chess players. The chess scenes are particularly well executed and are the real meat of the book. The obvious comparison will be to Queen’s Gambit, but unlike Queen’s Gambit, Spy’s Mate not only tells an engaging story but also narrativizes the games! That is, it shows positions from games and interweaves the positions into the story – and some of the games may even be familiar to readers with a background in chess history. I am unaware of any other navels which have taken this format straddling the line between a novel and “chess book” so successfully, and I found it quite compelling and well executed.
The novel as a whole leans heavily into the theater of the mind and reads at times almost like a screenplay. I mean this in a very positive sense, this is nota novel that is about dense prose, but instead a page-turning thriller where one can easily envision the scenes in the mind’s eye. At the same time, it also has touching moments – particularly between Yasha and his mother which will resonate with anyone who has cared for a sick loved one. It’s obvious between these that Brad is a strong writer and it came as no surprise to me when I discovered that he had been on the faculty of an English Department in his former life!
Overall, Spy’s Mate is a well-crafted novel that balances history, chess, and suspense. Copies are for sale at the Chess Room Office and we look forward to hosting Brad here again fora future event! There’s even a rumor going around that Yasha may visit Mechanics’ in the future!
Strongly Recommended
By Kirkus Reviews (Kirkus Media, Austin, Texas, USA)
Buchanan’s novel follows the evolution of a chess prodigy in the Cold War–era USSR. Yakov “Yasha” Basmajian is a young man in Soviet-era Armenia. Just before Yasha’s mother enters the hospital to have a mass removed from her throat, she teaches her son to play chess. So begins Yasha’s obsession with a game that will define his life. Chess is important in the Soviet Union—“part of the official Soviet educational curriculum”—and Yasha travels to Moscow to study with an elite coach. As Yasha comes to understand, the point of chess, according to the
Soviets, is “to prove to your opponent the ideological superiority of your intellectual preparation, the superiority of your tactical acumen, the superiority of your nerves and reflexes, and the superiority of your strength of will.” It’s heavy stuff for a young man playing a game, but, as Yasha will learn, he’s playing a very dangerous game indeed. Alongside Yasha’s journey, the narrative offers analyses of chess matches and insights into the practice of Soviet espionage (one character observes, “We exist in a highly paranoid state in these backward Republics”). One thread of the narrative concerns plans to build a powerful chess computer, though the Soviets would just as soon develop a discreet earpiece to help players cheat. The story features entertainingly colorful personalities (like a cranky American named Jimmy Hunter who seems loosely based on Bobby Fischer, and Yasha’s coach, who tells the protagonist that if he loses, “I shall truly despair of you”) and evocatively illustrates a time when the USSR was obsessed with preventing its citizens from defecting. Some scenes feel drawn out, but readers will be compelled to follow Yasha as he advances and confronts various obstacles in the bizarre landscape of elite international chess.
A vivid Cold War story about pursuing a dream in a world of Soviet oppression.