Raymond Khoury otherwise known for his screenwriting skills in the Emmy award winning drama Waking The Dead has tried his hand at writing a thriller with The Last Templar. If you have already read the Da Vinci Code it is highly doubtful that you will enjoy this foray - not the first or last of it's kind - into the facts and myths of the Holy Crusades and it's associated accessories.
It has all the trappings of a best seller. Sadly a near similar plot and historical backdrop has already caught the fancy of the public with it's predecessor The Da Vinci Code.
As for the story line, it involves, in it's present day context, a male FBI agent Sean Reilly and a female archaeologist Tess Chaykin. Inevitably a cliched love story blossoms in the midst of the gory mystery-chase.
The cime which sets this investigation rolling is a dramatic invasion by four men on horses dressed as the Knights Templar who break in and steal a number of artifacts of the Vatican on display for the first time at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. With all eyes - and cameras, on the gala opening of the display, this heinous crime, which also involves one decapitation in public, becomes a high profile case.
What follows is mildy interesting if you are already well versed in the controversies surrounding the bloodline of Christ, and still want to read more of the same. However for someone picking up a book on the topic for the first time it would surely make an eye-opening read.
Sadly, this book ends on an anti-climatic and frankly disappointing note. The author excites the reader's fantasy only to leave him with an abrupt thud in the murky waters of reality. And that's not even in an exciting sort of way.
Why else would a woman inspired by her love of legends, chasing a secret across continents and through gunfire, on finally discovering it abandon it on the grounds of personal morality which comes alive only at the end of the chase?
Again, my recommendation is that it's a must read for readers unacquainted with the mysteries surrounding Christ's lineage. But for those who do not want any more of that myth and it's unravelling this book can be passed up for a different subject.