Rating: 
Summary: Not what I'd hoped
Review: I wanted to like this book. I wanted to LOVE this book, I truly did. I'm the daughter of a Naval officer, I'm a scuba diver, I love a good mystery and I'm a Maltese Falcon fan..... But I just didn't connect with this book. I'm not sure why. Maybe reading the English translation put a wall up between me and the characters? Maybe the emphasis on the 'love' story over the mystery (and I didn't really buy the love story, either)? Whatever it was, I was disappointed with this book. I would have rather there was a lot more emphasis on the actual sea search and diving, that was very interesting, and the mystery line and double cross, rather than Coy's emotional chaos. And Palermo drove me insane, I couldn't even read any of his dialog, it was that annoying. And, as others have mentioned, the ending was rushed, when a slow unraveling would have served the story better. I don't regret reading "The Nautical Chart", but I won't be keeping it for my library.
Rating: 
Summary: An Intellectual thriller not to be missed!
Review: A delightful intellectual thriller filled with romance and mysteries of a sea bearing nature! A story you will not want to miss reading.
Rating:
Summary: Beach Reading in Maui
Review: The treasure found, is finding the author, Arturo Perez-Reverte.
The Nautical Chart was a fun book to read. Would recommend it. I did grow tired of reading about Coy's obsession for Tangier and when the "conquest" finally occured, to read about their body fluids. The story moved well and tied in both cartograph (Island of Lost Maps:True Story of Cartograph by Miles Harvey) with Clive Cussler type sea-treasure hunting. I would recommend the book, but would advise Mr. Perez-Reverte to pick up the pace and avoid spending so much time on body fuunctions.
Rating: 
Summary: Slow moving
Review: I have enjoyed several of this author's other novels, although The Seville Communion left me cold. My reaction to The Nautical Chart was similar.The opening is good - gets the reader involved straight away. From there, as others have mentioned, it just takes too long to unfold the tale. I enjoyed the nautical and local geographical details, but the main characters speak in riddles and world-weary pauses just too often. After a while, you feel like telling them to wake up and stop being so melodramatic. This seems to be a feature of this author's style - I even found it difficult to identify with or like the characters in the books I enjoyed. The ending does compensate in some ways, but it left me feeling pretty depressed about the fate of all the characters. It would make a good film noire movie!
Rating:
Summary: Scott
Review: A terrific novel. As an avid reader of nautical adventures, I think that the author has done a marvelous job in painting the character of the merchant sailor-hero. I take issue with the reviewers who say this work is not as worthwhile as the author's earlier novels. That's not a valid base of comparison, from my perspective. What matters is that in this book, Perez-Reverte has presented us with deep insight into an intriguing character, and has captured some of the mysterious essence of "the sailor" as a hero. If you have ever stood a watch in a storm-tossed sea, this book is for you.
Rating:
Summary: The Nautical Chart
Review: Having such a high regard from his previous novels, I was unprepared for a Micky Spillane theme, not his forte.
Rating:
Summary: not at all captivated
Review: I'm distressed to say that this book is boring me to death. Arturo Pérez-Reverte is one of my favorite writers, and I've devoured all of his other books, but this one is just a chore to get through. It's not that the story isn't interesting, because it is, it's that the language is dead. The writing just isn't as enthralling as the past works have been. My only consolation is that this flaw seems attributable to the translator, not the author. I'll certainly steer clear of any future works translated by Margaret Sayers Peden, and I'll live in hope that none of his other books will be handled by her.
Rating: 
Summary: Sail and Sail with Unshut Eye
Review: PLUMBING BOTH THE DEPTH OF THE SEAS AND of his characters, Arturo Pérez-Reverte brings us this lustrous adventure tale. In doing so, he reaches beyond his own classic works that include The Fencing Master and The Club Dumas. Senorita Tánger Soto is a dangerous, beautiful woman. Coy is a sailor and amateur diver. He encounters her at an auction, where in an outlandish manner she outbids all others to obtain a rare, ancient book of maps. Coy is able to point out a serious error in one map in particular. She attracts him, but he correctly senses both the pleasures and the perils that lie in her wake. With the quiet Senor El Piloto making up an unlikely intrepid trio, they agree upon setting out to search for the Dei Gloria - sunk off Spanish waters in 1767 - at a place identified on an old chart, but will it still be there? This starts out not as a treasure hunt per se - although some gold and coins would be welcome to them all - but because Tánger has reason to believe the boat contains secret documents, or valuable information of some kind. Tánger's research covered many angles. Coy must place all his trust in the two others. Are they trustworthy? Then, out on the blue, the fresh, the ever free sea, Coy falls in love. He and Tánger go together like lobster and lobster-trapper. Although Tánger responds to his lovemaking, it is physical, not emotional. A threat looms when other adventurers become curious as to what Coy and company are up to. Pérez-Reverte references Joseph Conrad, Herman Melville and others in this
tensive adventure.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent pop novel, mediocre "intellectual thriller."
Review: One of Perez-Reverte's most outstanding characteristics has always been his ability to incorporate academic research and arcane and thought-provoking historical data into an exciting and stimulating historical mystery. In the past, this research has always been an integral part of the novel's structure, and woe be unto the reader who, half-asleep when reading, misses a key detail or fails to note some crucial connection necessary to understanding the conclusion. This novel is different. Though it contains an intellectual mystery, it is also part treasure hunt, love story, character study, and treatise on sexual politics. Not totally successful on any of these levels, I found the novel entertaining, but lacking those special characteristics which have always made Perez-Reverte's books so mentally engaging. The story is relatively simple. Coy, a seaman who has been suspended for two years because of an accident, begins working for Tanger Soto, a pretty, blonde librarian for the Museo Naval, who has purchased a maritime atlas which will help her to locate a sunken ship. The ship, owned by the Jesuits, sank in 1767, and Tanger believes it carries a treasure, which she intends to find. Predictable complications ensue. The plot divides into two parts--the first part is exciting and full of action as Coy and Tanger launch their search, while the second part is almost dead, as their rivals for the treasure disappear for almost 200 pages. Perez-Reverte tries to keep the excitement going by having a particularly nasty rival reappear, menacingly, from time to time on shore, but eventually the author has to resort to the cute trick of introducing a completely new character, the narrator, to juice up the narrative and the search for the sunken ship. Even the foreshadowing is often heavy-handed: "He suspected that later...he would need to remember something about this place." Tanger, the "love interest," is distant and duplicitous, and Coy is warned by virtually everyone in the book that she can't be trusted, something that prevents the reader from being caught up in the love story. All in all, I found this below Perez-Reverte's past accomplishments, both in story and in execution, entertaining enough, but not the intellectual thriller I expected.
Rating:
Summary: sunken treasure story
Review: I thought this book was wonderful. The premise of finding a sunken ship two centuries after it sank is enough to grab your interest, but the background and history involved makes you yearn to know more of the times of pirates and the treasureships returning to Spain. Wonderful book with a modern mystery thrown in.
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