Books: The Last Templar

The Last Templar. Raymond Khoury. Conspiracy thriller.

Add this one to the list of novels based on the idea that the story of Jesus Christ is a myth on which the great religions of the world are founded.

As the title suggests, the novel's own foundation is based on the Knights Templar and their expulsion from Jerusalem. As the last of them sailed away in disarray from the Muslim onslaught, what was the secret of the chest they hid in their ship's bowsprit?

A daring crime in modern New York is the first step in the resolution of this question. The main 21st century character is an archeologist who happens to get a too close for comfort experience of this robbery. Teaming up with an FBI agent, sometimes reluctantly, she and he first have to find out what is behind the robbery, and then chase up its consequences all the way to where the Templar ship had sunk.

The story is right up there in the Da Vinci Code realm, with clever mixes of history and myth. It is written quite well, paced without slackness, and for those of us who love a conspiracy theory involving among others the Catholic Church, is one of those books that you take with you so that you can continue it in any spare moment.

Get it early. In Kilcullen Library it is a paperback, and though only a couple of us have taken it out it is already beginning to unbind a bit.

Worth the read, though.

Brian Byrne.