List of Chess-related Deaths - in Fiction

In Fiction

• In Ambrose Bierce's 1909 short story "Moxon's Master", a chess-playing robot murders its creator after losing a game.
• In Agatha Christie's 1927 novel The Big Four, a chess master is murdered by a strong electrical shock dealt him in the third move of his Ruy Lopez opening. In anticipation of his opening, the electrical connection was rigged to the square on the board through the floor from the apartment below.
• In Kurt Vonnegut's 1953 short story "All the King's Horses", a communist Chinese officer holds a U.S. ambassador, his family, and a number of enlisted men hostage, using them as chess pieces, ordering removed "pieces" to be executed.
• In John Brunner's 1965 science fiction novel The Squares of the City, the murderous events which take place are eventually shown to have the structure of a famous 1892 chess game between Wilhelm Steinitz and Mikhail Chigorin.
• In the 1967 spy film Deadlier Than the Male, the chief hero and villain square off on a giant electronically controlled chess board manned by lethal pieces.
• In Dorothy Dunnett's 1969 novel Pawn in Frankincense, a character is coerced into a life-size chess match with his son's life at stake.
• Katherine Neville's 1988 novel The Eight centers around an ancient chess set over which two opposing factions have battled for centuries, taking the roles of actual chess pieces.
• In the 1992 thriller film Knight Moves, a serial killer commits a series of murders across the city and a chess grandmaster helps catch him.
• In the novel Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, characters become human chess pieces in a life-sized game of Wizard's Chess, risking their lives.