The Tango of the Old Guard

Tango and chess, international espionage, fraud and theft, dark alleys, the dark sides of the soul, and love - doomed and lifelong. Two people from different worlds (a former soldier and now a gigolo, an involuntary spy and a crafty pickpocket, Max Costa, and the impenetrable socialite accustomed to luxury, Mercedes Insunsa) enact a thriller worthy of Hitchcock, a tense drama of fateful love and betrayal. These two have three brief encounters: in the 1920s, in the exquisite interiors of a transatlantic liner and in the slums of Buenos Aires; in the 1930s in Nice, when the shadow of everything that was to come already hung over Europe; and in Sorrento, during a fierce battle between Chilean and Soviet grandmasters for the chess crown, in the 1960s, when life has already passed and all that remains is to look with not a little envy at the young, clear-eyed and persistent, supporting them as much as possible. This is a story about the passion of tango and the cold calculation of chess, but not only that. It is a story of great love, but that is not all there is to it.