Michael Gorey

So you enjoyed The Da Vinci Code? You’re browsing a bookshop and see an impressive cover design for a new release called The Last Templar by Raymond Khoury.

You’re teased into buying it by the back-cover summary, which alludes to historical fiction and modern mystery.

Dan Brown has perked your interest in this subject, so what the heck, you fork out $20 and look forward to a good read. Wrong!

It’s not often I regret buying a book, but this is one of those occasions. I feel hoodwinked. I also feel guilty that I managed to read the whole thing. Despite its shallowness and lack of substance the story flows rather neatly.

The author is a screenwriter and this is his first novel. He can obviously write, but The Last Templar is more like the script of an average movie than quality literature.

I don’t expect or want Tolstoy every time I read a book, but I do want the plot to be believable and I’m uncomfortable reading clones of bestsellers.

The Last Templar is about a crazy professor who storms a Vatican art exhibition with three knights in armour to steal a 13th century decoding device.

Archaeologist Tess Chaykin and FBI investigator Sean Reilly team up to solve the puzzle and save the world. There’s a love interest on the side.

The loony academic wants to find a letter concealed by the Templars before they were kicked out of the Holy Land. It’s later revealed to contain explosive writings by Jesus himself that prove he was a spiritual leader only, and not the Son of God.

The Vatican is shown to know about these writings, thereby perpetuating a lie on the whole of humanity. A scheming Cardinal employs a mad Monsignor to stop the letter from being released. His orders are absolute and his methods ruthless.

You can tell from this short summary that the whole plot is cringe-worthy bizarre fiction. Brown’s Da Vinci Code was believable in its own way. It left room for doubt, and although others disagree, I thought it was respectful of the Church.

Khoury’s work is none of those things.

I can give him the benefit of the doubt and conceive that he was planning this book before The Da Vinci Code. If not, the politest phrase is to say that he’s opportunist.

I read another review, which said this book is a good one to take to the beach. Don’t worry about getting sand or water on it, because you’ll never read it again.

These articles might be of interest:

• The Da Vinci Code
• Gould’s Book of Fish
• Sight Unseen by Robert Goddard