Zugzwang, from the German Zug (move) and Zwang (obligation), is a term used in chess when the player whose turn it is to move has no move that does not worsen his position. It is not merely a bad position, but the state of being obliged to move when no move at all would be preferable. Ronan Bennett, who co-writes an enjoyable chess column for the Observer, has used the concept as a starting point for his fifth novel. It’s a thriller set in St Petersburg in 1914 on the eve of an international chess tournament (when such things were still glamorous affairs); the hero and narrator, Dr Otto Spethmann, is a psychoanalyst who finds himself caught up in a complex political plot in which the police, the Bolsheviks, the Okhrana (the Tsarist secret police) and a notorious Polish terrorist are all involved. Whilst shady characters with hidden motives manoeuvre around him, Spethmann must assess the situation correctly and make the right move before the situation in St Petersburg becomes untenable.

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