Kasparov defined chess as 'the most violent sport in existence'. Part psychological thriller, part allegory, THE LUNEBURG VARIATION tells the story of a duel to the death, of a chess game that remained unfinished over fifty years. When an impeccable German businessman is found shot dead in the garden of his home, without any explanation for his apparent 'suicide', a mystery unfolds which carries the reader to the dead man's roots in pre-war Vienna, to his rivalry with a brilliant young Jewish player, and to the terrible secret in their past.