“Is that possible?” asked Cesar. “Can you really judge the character of a person by the way he behaves when playing?”
“ I think you can,” replied Munoz
“ In that case, what do you think of the person who thought up this, bearing in mind that he did so in the fifteenth century?”
“ I’d say” –Munoz was looking at the painting, absorbed—“I’d say these was something ‘diabolical’ about the way he played chess.”

--from The Flanders Panel by Arturo Perez-Reverte

Chess Stories: Nicki on Bibliobuffet.com
Nicki's review of a collection of novels with chess themes

Because life is too short to play it safe!