Published 2005
Since the publication of Dan Brown’s The DaVinci Code, any book mentioning the Knights Templar is bound to intrigue. The story begins with the fall of Acre and the Templar’s last stand in the holy city in 1291. A band of knights escapes from the battle carrying a small chest wrapped in velvet, its contents a well-kept secret, even from all but a few of the Templars themselves. They make their way to the Falcon Temple, a galley ship waiting in the harbor.
Moving forward to the 21st century, four horsemen dressed as Templars ride out of Central Park and into, literally, the Metropolitan Museum of Art where, guns blazing, still astride their horses, they steal several of the items on display at a special showing of Treasures of the Vatican. Witnessing the theft of an unusual object from behind untouched exhibits, Tess Chaykin, is terrified. After the fact, and reunited with her daughter and mother, who had been in the ladies’ room during the commotion, Tess is intrigued. The daughter of a well-known archeologist, and a trained archeologist herself Tess begins to wonder why this particular object was taken.
Sean Reilly is the FBI agent in charge of the investigation. When he questions Tess regarding the incident he realizes that she is holding back something, but doesn’t know what. Tess calls on experts she knows in the field and discovers that the object taken from the exhibit was an encoder, an ingenious device which the Templars used to code messages making them indecipherable to anyone else, even within the Catholic Church. What she and Reilly find out later is that one of the horsemen has discovered one of these messages and needs the device to break the code. Meanwhile the other three horsemen are dropping dead like flies, presumably killed by their leader.
The story continues to flash back to the events immediately after the knight’s escape from Jerusalem in 1291, the path of a small band of knights, the sinking of the Falcon Temple during a storm, the enigmatic reason behind the Knight Templar’s rise to power and subsequent fall. Tess and Reilly, for different reasons, try to stay a step ahead of the lone horseman’s quest to unearth the mysteries of that last ill-fated journey out of the holy land.
Murder
Fatal Pursuit, by Martin Walker
Published 2016
This novel takes place in St. Denis in the Dordogne in France and incorporates a wonderful rural life of friends, family and especially food. Horses and dogs, ducks, chickens and geese, especially geese, have their place as well. Bruno, chief of police is called on at the last moment to navigate for his friend, Annette in a cross-country auto race which brings visitors in the form of expensive cars and the foreigners who race them to their quiet village. Two of these foreigners are hot on the trail of an unbelievably valuable Bugatti race car which disappeared near the village during WWII. While Bruno goes about his daily routine of dealing with petty thieves, truant teenagers and exercising his horse, Hector and Bassett hound Balzac, he comes across clues to the automobile’s fate. Meanwhile a new love interest enters his life in the form of a young lady home from London to visit her parents who are feuding with their wealthy relative over property rights and whether the area will host luxury apartments or stay the rural countryside they prefer. Bruno’s old flame Isabelle returns with evidence that links the race drivers to international money laundering and terrorist support.
A fun and well written novel, with so many elements that I enjoy: gardening, cooking, farm animals, horses and dogs, and mystery as well. I plan on reading other novels in the Bruno, Chief of Police series soon.