The Templar Legacy

By Steve Berry

Who were the Templars? The Templars were an order of military monks whose original mission was to protect pilgrims visiting the Holy Land in the time of the Crusades. However, they ultimately failed in this mission when the Arabs gained control of the Middle East. Before that, the Templars amassed a lot of wealth and property. After the failure of their mission in the Middle East, they retreated back to Europe where they continued to grow in wealth and property. Perhaps they became too ambitious. For whatever reason, Philip IV, king of France, turned against the Knights Templar and, with the cooperation of the Pope, many of  the Templars were seized, tortured and burned alive. Their properties and assets were divided and distributed in various ways and their order disbanded. (For more about the Templars, see http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14493a.htm ). Berry postulates a theory based on legend that the Templars hid much of their liquid wealth, including secrets about the Roman Catholic Church that would utterly discredit the Church.
So...Cotton Malone, an American living in Denmark, has retired as an agent of the US Justice Department and is running a bookstore. He sees his former boss and witnesses her purse being stolen. Malone gives chase only to have the thief jump to his death off a tower: "[the thief] made the sign of the cross and, with Stephanie's bag in hand, pivoted out over the railing, screamed one word--'beauseant'--then slashed the knife across his throat as his body plunged to the street." And thus are Malone and Stephanie first introduced to the Knights Templar.
The Templars are on the hunt for their lost treasure and for their "Great Devise" which is the ancient chronicle of their order, lost to them when the order was disbanded by the Pope back in the early 1300s. Stephanie's deceased ex-husband was a scholar and researcher of the Templars and in her handbag was a journal that belonged to her husband, which is why they tried to steal it from her. This event and subsequent events set Malone and Stephanie on the trail of the lost treasure and into direct conflict with an extremist element of the Knights Templar who will do anything to regain the lost power and influence of their order.

This was an OK, if a rather long read. I did learn quite a bit about the Templars which made reading it worthwhile. I guess my main problem with this story and the previous one is that I am not a fan of this genre of literature. I don't generally read thrillers or conspiracy type stories. Perhaps those who are a fan of this genre would enjoy more than I did.

The Romanov Prophecy

By Steve Berry

Set in the time after the fall of the Soviet Union, this story imagines a Russia that is disappointed with democracy, fearful of a return to communism and so has decided to resurrect the aristocracy. The search is on for the man who will be the new tsar of Russia. This person will have to fit several qualifications, the chief of which is that he is the most direct descendant of the last tsar, Nicholas II, who was murdered by the Bolsheviks in 1918. Which might be a bit of a challenge, since Nicholas' whole family was executed at the same time he was. Or were they? There have always been rumors and questions as to whether they all died that day. When the bodies were exhumed in the 1990s, two were missing, which is the basis of this story by Berry, who assumes Nicholas' son and a daughter escaped the firing squad and survived.
A faction of several powerful leaders has come up with a Romanov cousin who they have put forth as the rightful claimant to the tsar's throne. These leaders, representing various factions such as the military, the bureaucracy, the Russian mob, think to control the government of the new tsar by putting their puppet ruler on the throne. The idea that there may be a direct descendant of Nicholas upsets them greatly and they will do anything to put their man on the throne.
Atlanta lawyer Miles Lord's firm has been hired to do the required background check on the power faction's candidate. Miles has had a life long interest in Russia and speaks and reads the language and, during his research in Russian archives, finds some papers that seem to indicate that some of Nicholas' children survived. Displeased with his discovery, his employers turn against him and attempt to eliminate this threat to their candidate by killing Lord. They fail and Lord sets off on the trail of the Romanov heir with the help of a beautiful circus acrobat and a secret Russian society dedicated to protecting the Romanovs.

This was an OK story. How an American would be able to figure out what has eluded the Russians for decades was a bit improbable as was the ultimate destination of the hunt for the heir. Also, how long it took a supposedly smart guy like Lord to understand who was betraying his movements to his enemies was kind of improbable too. Anyway, it made for an OK read if only for the story of the last tsar and his family and what was done to them. That part was pretty interesting even if the rest was just ordinary.