last templar

My wife gave me The Last Templar just after she read it, saying it was pretty good. I think that's a fair summary. I've read a couple of books by Raymond Khoury, and he can write a good story. Shortly thereafter, my wife asked me to have a look for the follow up to this one at the library, which I did, and they had, so I got it for her. I'll read that next, before it goes back.

I had just recently read Steve Berry's Templar book a few years ago when I first saw this book, but needed a break from the Templars, and then forgot about it. Ah... the Templar, they just keep on giving. Who doesn't love a bunch of guys who join a monastic order, take a vow of poverty, strap on some armor and go defend the holy land, and get filthy rich doing it, regardless of their poverty vow. Who knows. But then the Vatican became a war state there for a while, too. Maybe it was just a fad, you know how these young religious boys get.

Anyway, Khoury gives a little tease about what the Templars may have discovered during their time in the holy land, and how one of these treasures may have been lost. Fast forward to now, and the opportunity presents itself for this lost treasure to be found, and mayhem shortly ensues. Khoury puts together a tag team of foxy academic who can't help solving clues 'cause she's wicked smaht, and Doogood Supercop, who just wants to solve crime and make the word a better place, and so grudgingly accepts the help of the academic. I won't spoil it for you...

Khoury does a good job of dreaming up some interesting pitfalls for our duo, and the story chugs right along. I'm not saying that he going to win the Nobel prize here, we all know how this is going to end, we've read it before, but that's why we read these books. Its like watching a weekly TV show. You worry about the main characters when they're in trouble right before the commercial break, but as my mom said, when we were especially worried about The Six Million Dollar Man one night, "Don't worry, he'll be fine." And when we turned to her, our faces full of questioning awe, she followed up with, "He has to be, he's on again next week." << pop! >>

This was a fun read, and I'm going to bang out the follow up before getting to the others on my list.