Umberto Eco wrote the original (and much, much better) version of The Da Vinci Code (Foucault's Pendulum) and the best-selling The Name Of The Rose, both of which I enjoyed greatly. Queen Loana reads like an extended short story - an essay on memory and nostalgia, perhaps - which I'm sure resonates much more in Italy than in the anglophone world, as it deals with a man trying to recover his memory by reading the comics of his wartime youth. Eco writes well, as you might expect, and lards the text with all sorts of literary quotes and allusions - not to mention pictures from pre-war and wartime Italian comics, but ultimately the lack of overt plot and storyline makes the book feel insubstantial.