Fast paced thriller,grabs you from the first page. Characters are a little weak.Gives a decent, general history of the Templar Knights.Light,historical fiction. Good beach read.

Overall I enjoyed reading Khoury's book. It is nicely paced and does a good job of weaving together a storyline set in the 13th Century with the main story set in the present day. However, the last third was increasingly implausible as the plot moved to its conclusion. I picked this up at the library having just finished Robyn Young's very enjoyable 'Brethren', also about the Templars, but this book is not really in that league. The level of character development and fantastical plot feels more like a book tie-in with a movie rather than having the depth that I look for in a good novel. ( )

Very detailed plot and got me to thinking about the "illusion" of Jesus Christ. Very well done. I liked the action and kept turning the pages. I'll read another book by Khoury! ( )

Liked it until the very end - was kind of disappointed with the ending. ( )

Four men on horseback dressed as Templars raid an exhibition of Vatican treasures. Former archaeologist Tess Chaykin overhears one of them murmur a reverent phrase in Latin as he takes an encoding device. Soon she and FBI agent Sean Reilly are on the trail of a priceless artifact that may change the concept of the Christian religion forever.

I like airplane reads. I really like puzzle thrillers. And I approached this one hoping for a mixture between the Da Vinci Code and the Dirk Pitt stories. Unfortunately Tess seemed mostly to do incredibly stupid things - not telling the FBI that a psycho may have her daughter, stranding her FBI escort in the wilds of nowhere while snipers take potshots so she can scamper off with the Bad Guy to further her career. That sort of thing. So I was less than impressed with her as a heroine.

I was even less impressed that the book seemed to degenerate into a lengthy debate about whether the discovery that Jesus may have been a 'mere mortal man' would destroy ALL FAITH AS WE KNOW IT. Including all the religions that think that Jesus was a mortal man apparently... It doesn't make a lot of sense and it seemed to be a central point of the book. All told I thought the way it ended was both rushed and lazy, and the epilogue served to remove any interest and any last snippet of controversy. A shame that it turned out so irritating. I quite liked the snippets about the Templars.

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