Schachnovelle

A Viennese lawyer held in Gestapo solitary confinement after the Anschluss, who sustains his sanity by mentally replaying chess games memorized from a stolen book, then defeats champion Mirko Czentovic aboard ship at the cost of reopening his own trauma.

An orphaned, barely-literate former peasant who rose to become the reigning world chess champion; aloof, mercenary and savant-like at the board, he plays a series of paid exhibition games against the passengers of a New York-to-Buenos Aires liner and is ultimately shaken by his rematch with Dr. B.

A wealthy, obstinate Scottish engineer and chess enthusiast aboard the liner who organizes and bankrolls the passengers' matches against Czentovic, unwittingly drawing Dr. B. into the game.