Mastering the End Game by British GM Glenn Flear is yet another in a series of outstanding books on the endgame that have appeared in the past four years. To mention but a few, I can point out Endgame Secrets by Christopher Lutz, Essential Chess Endings by James Howell and The Survival Guide to Rook Endings by John Emms. All of these books, including Flear's, are written with the intention of instructing the student and not just serving as a reference work. Mastering the Endgame, which is the follow-up to Improve Your Endgame Play, by the same author, is probably the most user friendly of the bunch with a very spacious layout, lots of explanatory prose, and a realistic amount of material to make one's way through. This is not a book for beginners, nor is it one for endgame specialists. There is a lot of material on Rook and Pawn endings, but Flear's book is not so specialized as Emms'. There are lots of exercises for the student and plenty of helpful tips sprinkled throughout. I would estimate this book to be aimed at players from 1800-2400.

Mastering the Endgame is highly recommended for all those who want to improve their endgame play (Don't we all!). One small caveat, which also applies to Dunnington's middlegame book. It's not a big deal, but one slightly annoying thing about the layout in both books is the placement of the diagrams which always appear in pairs. This sometimes means that the reader has to hunt around the page to put text and diagram together.

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