Coy is a merchant marine First Officer banned from the seas after a maritime misadventure not of his doing. After wandering in on a naval auction in an attempt to get a taste of the open seas, Coy finds himself embroiled in a race for a historical treasure buried of the coast of his Cartagena.

He comes to the aid of Navy employee Tanger Soto, a Tintin fanatic with a perfectly symmetrical parting, who, for reasons that are slowly revealed to Coy, is obsessed with tracing a sunken Jesuit vessel that was attacked off the coast of Spain on its return journey from South America.

With his naval experience and Tanger’s historical background (as well as her womanly wiles) the two are able to piece together a clear picture of the fate that befell the ship, and, along with Coy’s longterm friend, El Piloto, they set about pinpointing the wreck’s precise location.

Hot on their trail are Nino Palermo, a brutal, money-hungry treasure-hunter from Gibraltar, and his professional entourage, and a psychotic Argentinean frogman.

‘The Nautical Chart,’ though at times going overboard with the maritime metaphors and with sometimes unconvincing dialogue, (Probably, I think it’s safe to assume, a result of the translation — and a caveat to British readers: this is an American translation, which, for me, interrupted some of my enjoyment of the book) is a novel that is very deep and very convincing, in that it is fairly self-aware of its own existence as a text (and that of a plethora of other fictions, both sea-faring and terrestrial), but its characters are perfectly realised and laced (perhaps self-consciously) with idiosyncrasies. Also, the technical precision of the author, both literally and nautically, remains unquestioned by this enthralled reader, and Perez-Reverte’s cartographical facts and figures and multitudinous shipping terms do little but add to the atmosphere of the story.

The plot, as one would expect from such a lauded storyteller, is intriguing and persuasive, and the dénouement is one that will have the reader kicking themselves for not working it out beforehand, for the tale’s conclusion is an inevitable one (and the author succeeds where so many have failed, using the trick clichéd by lesser writers of having the end at the beginning).

It is a delight and a cause for jealousy to come across a novelist that both entertains and mentally stimulates with the apparent ease Perez-Reverte possesses. He is an author I have had mixed reports concerning, but if his other books float as well as the one in question, I for one am more than game to hear a few more yarns from the old seadog.

Neil Ayres was born in East London in 1979. He left school with a handful of GCSEs when he was 16 and has worked at times (and in no particular order) as a warehouseman, a cattery hand, a copy-shop assistant, a barman, a professional dog trainer and a cheap alternative to a computer database. He currently works in publishing. He lives on the Surrey/Sussex border in a house without a resident cat, though if there was one it could live without fear of being swung, as there’s not enough room to do such a thing. Neil is project manager for the ‘Book of Voices,’ an anthology of short stories due to be published by Flame Books in March 2005 in an attempt to raise awareness of the work of the Sierra Leone office of International PEN. Neil is also a member of Godisin, the first TTA writers’ workshop. In between all of the above, he is trying to get round to finishing his second novel and finding a decent agent. To read Neil’s story, ‘Changeling’ on the Showcase section of this site, click here or for more reviews by Neil, visit The New Review index here.

© 2004 Laura Hird All rights reserved.