Katherine Neville

Katherine Neville is an American author whose The Eight — a thriller about a chess set of extraordinary power sought across centuries — became an international bestseller and one of the most widely imitated historical thrillers of the 1980s.

Katherine Neville worked as a computer systems programmer and bank executive before publishing The Eight (1988), a dual-timeline thriller in which a chess set associated with Charlemagne is sought by characters in both the French Revolutionary period and the 1970s. The chess pieces, which are said to confer enormous power on whoever possesses the set, drive a global treasure hunt involving mathematics, art history, and the occult.

The Eight predates and helped establish the conventions of the historical thriller subgenre that The Da Vinci Code would later dominate: the hidden object of supernatural power, the dual-timeline structure, the heroine who is a professional woman with specialized knowledge relevant to the mystery, the global chase across iconic historical locations. Neville’s particular contribution was the seriousness of her historical research — particularly into the French Revolutionary period — and the genuine complexity of the chess metaphor running through the novel.

The Eight was a significant international bestseller in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and has remained in print. A Fire (2008), a direct sequel, followed the descendants of characters from the first novel. The Eight is both the best starting point and the essential work; its sequel, while enjoyable for readers who want to return to the world, does not replicate the excitement of the original discovery. Neville spent several decades between the two books, working in other fields while the first novel maintained its readership.