Raymond Khoury The Last Templar

I found the secondary plot (focusing on Martin of Carmaux) more interesting than the main plot. The remainder of the novel seemed significantly less engaging. Squids are cruel lords of the sea.

A violent raid by 4 horsemen on a New York museum is the opening excitement in Raymond Khoury, The Last Templar. It sparks a series of events that threaten to unlodge the grip held on the known world by the religious order.

And the only thing stopping it is the work of two (coincidentally single and very attractive) people, thrust together by circumstance.

If you're interested so far then I suggest you give it a read. Because if you are happy with the painfully thin veneer, incongruous historical references, ludicrous characterizations and unbelievable scenarios, then you will happily trundle through the book and have a rare old time doing so.

I found it hard to pick this book up each time I found it on top of the 'to read' pile, and normally I'm pretty tolerant of most things.

This became a turgid, unsatisfactory affair, and I fancy it could have shed a good 150 pages quite easily without impacting on any of the key points, or indeed losing any of the (admittedly only 2 dimensional) characterizations.

The front cover was enough to entice me in; all I can say is the marketing team of the publishers deserve more of a note of credit than the author does.

Stick to Dan Brown if that's what floats your boat. Sorry Raymond.

The Last Templar

Raymond Khoury

Dutton, Feb 2006, $24.00, 400 pp.

ISBN: 0525949410

In 1291 Acre, the Muslim onslaught devastated the last stronghold of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. As the city burned, Grand Master of the Knights of Templar William of Beaujeu, nearing death, knows they lost here, but sends Aimard of Villiers, accompanied by his prot g Martin of Carmaux, to escape with a mysterious chest on the only vessel left intact in the nearby harbor, The Falcon Temple, regretfully leaving behind their brothers to die.

At the present day Metropolitan Museum of Art, Treasures from the Vatican are on display, when four masked men wearing the medieval garb of the Templar Knights ride horses out of Central Park into MOMA. As the tuxedo opening gala crowd flees, stunned archaeologist Tess Chaykin watches in fascinating horror as one of the horsemen says something in Latin before reverently grasping one of the objects, before fleeing into the night. FBI Agent Sean Reilly heads to investigation assisted by his longtime partner Nick Aparo and Vatican envoy Monsignor De Angelis, and soon Tess joins them in a quest that crosses three continents and over seven centuries.

The exciting thriller, THE LAST TEMPLAR contains two fine subplots with most of the action happening in the present, but much occurring back in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. The historical aspects seem more fascinating, as the audience obtains a taste of the Templar Knights' honor and faith, while the present is fun, but also suffers in part from the Browning of religious conspiracy theory novels syndrome. Still this is a fine tale that even Da Vinci would enjoy.