Shadow Without a Name.

New York, NY Farrar, Straus & Giroux: Picador, 2004. Paperback First Edition Thus; First Printing indicated. First Edition Thus; First Printing indicated. Fine in Wraps: binding square and secure; text clean. Virtually 'As New'. NOT a Remainder, Book-Club, or Ex-Library. 8vo. 192pp. Translated by Peter Bush and Anne McLean. Trade Paperback. Like a game of chess where anonymous pawns are sacrificed, pieces swapped and humble pawns can be made queens, where strategy is all, this novel moves players and identities about on a board incomprehensible to the players/narrators but fascinating to the readers. Told in 4 voices that spread from WWI to the early 1960's and the execution of Eichmann in Jerusulaem, we see that names, identities and futures are swapped by games of chess on board a train to the Eastern front of WWI. But soon we find that all these disparate voices are united in the sense of belonging to one giant chess game whose moves they can not control and - even more - in the interconnectedness and yet shadowy strands that connect them all. The Shadow Without A Name is a book that combines intelligence, strategy and suggestiveness to convey the fluidness of personal identity and yet the way we all quest for a sense of who we are,and for a way to understand our role in the world. The Shadow suggested works on many levels - including the way we cast shadows on other's lives, and how those shadows affect us. The different voices are all distinct characters in tone, and yet the use of these voices is quite well done - there is no sense of choppiness to the novel as it progresses forward and through the past. While some of the action takes place during war, this is not a "war book", nor is it simply a mystery concerned with a simple crime. The structure of self and identity and the need to know what happens as a result of these overt and sublte games of chess will keep the reader following the game to the end of the book. If there is any weakness, it is that places are mentioned, but never fully evoked or felt, but this is minor when the people and plot are so compellingly drawn.