Good Navigating

You can do everything right, strictly according to procedure, on the ocean, and it'll still kill you, but if you're a good navigator, at least you'll know where you were when you died.

- Justin Scott, The Shipkiller

Never heard of Justin Scott or his novel, but came across this quote while rereading The Nautical Chart by Arturo Perez-Reverte.  I think it applies to many things in life, though the consequence may not be as dire. You can work hard to set yourself up for success, but it does not guarantee success.  On the other hand, not doing so increases the likelihood of failure.

Perez-Reverte is one of my favorite authors, having read fifteen on his novels.  The Spanish writer cannot be slotted into any one genre.  The six book Captain Alatriste series, set in early 17th century Spain and the Netherlands, as the empire enters its long period of decline, tells the tale of a gallant, loyal soldier told through the reminiscence of an old man, Inigo Balboa, once his young squire.   His other novels are much different.

Queen of the South, his finest novel (recently made into a cable series which greatly deviates from the book), is about a young Mexican woman, fleeing to Spain after the killing of her cartel-linked boyfriend, and recreating herself as a drug lord.

A search for a supposedly lost treasure ship off the coast of Spain with a cast of characters about whom little is certain and none can be trusted (a Perez-Reverte specialty) is recounted in The Nautical Chart.

Set in mid-19th century Spain, The Fencing Master, is about an honorable swordsman, trying to eke a living by instruction in the fine art of fencing, who encounters a mysterious woman, whose skill may exceed his own.

We plunge into the world of antiquarian art dealers and booksellers in two novels, The Flanders Panel and The Club Dumas (the latter, Perez-Reverte's international bestseller).  In Club Dumas, the protagonist finds himself entangled in a virtual reenactment of Dumas' The Three Musketeers, while Flanders involves the obsession of an art restorer to solve a 500 year old murder mystery even as she faces her own possible death at the hands of a serial killer.

The brooding, somber tone of The Painter of Battles, reflects Perez-Reverte's own experience as a war correspondent, including during the breakup of the former Yugoslavia.  A moving and provocative novel.