Walter Tevis - Gambito de Dama

When eight-year-old Beth Harmon's mother dies in a car accident, the girl is sent to an orphanage in Mount Sterling, Kentucky. Simple, taciturn, and shy, Beth seems unremarkable… until she plays her first game of chess. Her senses sharpen, her thinking becomes clearer, and for the first time in her life, she feels completely in control.

With no money, Beth is desperate to learn more about the game that has become her life – she steals a chess magazine, enough money to enter a tournament, and some of her adoptive mother's tranquilizers, to which she is addicted.

At thirteen, she wins a chess tournament; at sixteen, she competes in the US Open Championship; At eighteen, she's a U.S. champion – and Russia awaits her… But as Beth hones her skills on the professional circuit, the stakes get higher, her isolation becomes more frightening, her addictions spiral out of control, and the idea of ​​escape becomes even more tempting.