4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Historia + aventura en clave de humor, August 29, 2007
This review is from: Todo Bajo el Cielo: Novela (Spanish Edition) (Paperback)
Asensi se ha convertido en una de mis escritoras preferidas. Logra la mezcla perfecta entre una aventura en el mejor estilo Indiana Jones con una clase magistral de historia. Sus novelas siempre tienen una carga importantísima de documentación que enriquece la trama de manera singular. En esta novela que devoré en una noche, la heroína es una española hipocondríaca, pintora rebelde que escogió París, tía de una niña huérfana con un carácter de los mil demonios. Ambas inician una increíble aventura que comienza en Shangai y recorre la China profunda. La evolución de ambas, de la mano de un maestro del Tao, un anticuario karateca y un chinito de 13 años que habla español, comienza cuando la vida misma corre todos los peligros imaginables en una ciudad de mafiosos, corrupción y opio. La autora logra que la legendaria y complicada cultura china cale en el lector como si fuera soplar y hacer botellas. Como es usual en ella, el humor está presente por todas partes, directamente en lo que dicen los personajes, o insinuados en descripciones y situaciones hilarantes. Tal vez no es la mejor sus novelas, pero se disfruta plenamente. Lo recomiendo 100%
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Indiana Jones adventure in literature., August 13, 2008
This review is from: Todo Bajo el Cielo: Novela (Spanish Edition) (Paperback)
It's 1923.
Elvira de Poulin, a Spanish painter living in Paris, has to travel to Shanghai with her niece, Fernanda; to settle the estate of her dead husband, Rémy, who lived and died in China. Theirs was a marriage of convenience.
Once in Shanghai, she finds out that her husband was addicted to opium and has accumulated debts of more than three hundred thousand francs. That same day, she is warned that she and her niece are in terrible danger. The Green gang killed her husband because he had a very important object that they wanted.
Meanwhile, Fernanda was given a servant by the name of Biao at the Shanghai orphanage to help with the Chinese language.
Assisted by Patrick (Paddy) Tichborne, who introduces her to an antiquarian by the name of Lao Jang, Elvira discovers that indeed her husband was killed for a very old Chinese box--the coffer of one hundred jewels--that holds the clues to find the three pieces of the map where Shi Huang Ti, the first Ming emperor's tomb is located.
Drawn by the desire to pay her debts and a strange sense of adventure, she embarks in the biggest adventure of her life with Paddy, Mr. Jang, Biao, and Fernanda. There was no time to react--as they were persecuted and assaulted by the Imperial Eunuchs, the Green gang all of which are willing to kill for the secret in that coffer.
They embark in a journey that takes them to the heart of China. After finding the first two pieces of the map, they must go to Xi'an and the Wudand monastery. There they must solve a puzzle to obtain the third piece of the map.
Paddy is hurt and loses a leg defending the group, so when they leave Wudand, they take a pair of monks trained in martial arts and the Chinese ways.
They find the tomb where with the great knowledge of the monk, Red Jade; Biao's great intelligence and the two women's tenacity and endurance, they solve all the puzzles and evade the traps to find the emperor's tomb. But the biggest trap is a political one that holds the best kept secret of all humanity.
Matilde Asensi has created a wonderful thriller, rooted in knowledge of the Chinese imperial culture that is impossible to put down. An Indiana Jones adventure in literature.
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