The Last Templar

The Last Templar by Raymond Khoury is another chase-to-the-trophy kind of story, very much in the style of Dan Brown. In this book though, the story revolves around and archeologist named Tess Chaykin and FBI agent Sean Reilly. After a museum in New York has been attacked by four horsemen dressed as knights templar, Sean and Tess are being called to solve the crime since they took an arcane medieval decoder. The case leads them to the mystery of the centuries; what was the secret of the templars, and who was the last one? Their journey leads them to several countries and in the end; they find the treasure and discover the love for each other. This book displays the stereotypical happy-ending with a twist that would devastate world history and world faith. Nevertheless Raymond managed to craft a well written story out of his idea.

Excerpt from The Last Templar:

Reilly did his best to avoid appearing conflicted. Much as he was enjoying sitting there with Tess. He couldn’t see the relevance of everything she’d just told him. A bunch of selfless knights grow into a medieval superpower only to get their wings clipped and disappear ignominiously into the annals of history. What did that have to do with a gang of armed robbers trashing a museum seven hundred years later?
‘You think the guys at the museum were wearing Templar outfits?’ he asked.
‘Yes. The Templars wore simple clothing, very different from the gaudy outfits other knights wore back then. Remember, they were religious monks, committed to poverty. The white robes symbolized the purity of life that was expected of them, and the red crossed, the color of blood, advertised their special relationship with the Church.’
‘Okay, but if you asked me to draw a knight, I’d probably come up with something that looks pretty close to that without consciously thinking about the Templars. It’s a pretty iconic look, isn’t it?’
Tess nodded. ‘Look, on its own, I agree, it’s not conclusive. But then there’s the encoder.’
‘This I the object the fourth horseman took. The one you were next to.’
Tess moved in a bit closer, seeming more driven now. ‘Yes. I looked it up. It’s far more advanced than anything that appeared for hundreds of years. I mean this thing is revolutionary. And the Templars were known to be masters of encryption. Codes were the backbone of their whole banking system. When the pilgrims traveling to the Holy Land deposited money with them, the receipts they were given were written in code, which could only be deciphered by Templars. That way, no one could forge a deposit note and cheat them. They were pioneers in this field and somehow, this encoder fits their sophisticated, secretive methods.’