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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book.  AprilFollies | Nov 15, 2009 |  Book1 in the Cotton Malone series This novel can join the many growing stories surrounding the legendary Knights and the secrets they withhold and have guarded with their lives for so many years. It opens with Cotton Malone a former covert agent for the department of U.S. Justice visiting his former boss, Stephanie Nelle. He learns that she has been on a quest to find the Templar's "Great Devise", intrigued, Cotton decides to join her. Action starts when Stephanie is accosted by a purse snatcher and a subsequent wild foot chase causes the perpetrator when cornered to commit suicide. Action increases even more when Stephanie realizes the notebook she received under mysterious circumstances is the real target of the thieves and possibly holds the key to the Templar's fortune. Tensions are raised another notch when a modern day Templar and his followers make Cotton and Stephanie their prime targets, each have their own objectives. Danger lurks at everyone corner as their paths cross...The suspense prevails till the end... M. Berry created a likable modern day sleuth in Malone but unfortunately Stephanie is a bit too naive to be credible considering the job she has, the characterization could have been better developed. I liked the plot, it is fast-paced, exciting and has its fair share of twists and turns. The narration is great and the addition of humor to the dialogue is a plus. This is a gripping tale that could be quite controversial for some. It gives a modern day twist to a clandestine society, The Templar's, a group that controlled kings and popes and possessed a staggering amount of power and wealth. The writer comments on the historical accuracy in his notes at the end. (  ) Tigerpaw70 | Oct 24, 2009 | There were variying views on this - I'm afraid I didn't like it at all! Apart from finding the whole theme rather dull (done to death, and it's all nonsense) I didn;t think it was very well written, and I didn't find the chracters interesting. That said, there were some good bits, and I probably would have finished it, even without BC pressure! PS CaterhamBookGroup | Jun 12, 2009 | In this book, the Knights Templar are still around, secretly practicing their brotherhood in an underground compound that masquerades as a monastery. They elect a new leader, called a Master, when the old one dies and he is determined to find something called The Great Devise which supposedly the Knights found back in the twelfth century under the Temple in Jerusalem. This new Master figures that this Great Devise is something very powerful for their organization that will help them regain their heritage and claim justice for the killing of so many Knights in the fifteenth century. Cotton Malone gets involved because his former boss Stephanie Nelle starts investigating the clues to finding the Great Devise also after she receives some information anonymously in the mail. By doing this, she attracts the unwanted attention of the modern day Knights Templar, and a dangerous race begins...who can find the Great Devise first. In working out this improbable plot, the book switches between action-filled segments, and more thoughtful puzzle-solving sections. There are many cryptic clues and even a cryptogram. Although they don't come right out and say what the Great Devise is, there is enough speculation about it, that you pretty much know what it will be before they find it. I found the characters mostly flat and without much depth, and therefore I was not particularly invested in their success at the culmination of the novel. Additionally, I found the writing itself to be mediocre, consisting mainly of a huge amount of question-and-answer dialogue. I would have liked a little more description giving a more vivid sense of place. (  ) chinquapin | Jun 10, 2009 | This is the first book starring Cotton Malone and Steve Berry kicks off with Malone getting tangled up with the Knights Templar, long thought dead in their skirmishes with Kings and other enemies, but are actually alive, well and very wealthy in Europe. Their master has just died and they have just elected a new master, who is much more aggressive, more assertive and who wants to claim back the Templars' heritage from those he believes stole it from them. The stage is set for a violent showdown between the new master, his faithful followers and the people he plans to go up against - including Stephanie Nelle, Cotton's former boss at the Justice Department. It starts with a Templar assassin trying to rob and murder her and it goes downhill from there. From that point on, Nelle and Malone try to outwit and defeat the Templars and their murderous master as they try to claim what they believe to be rightfully theirs, treasures and monies which go back hundreds of years, treasures and monies which they believe will restore their reputation. The link to Nelle is a book her dead husband wrote more than a decade ago which may unwittingly show on an obscure tombstone where this treasure is located. But the former master, before dying, dispatched two knights templars to protect Nelle and Malone and while they are protecting them and ratcheting up the body count, the identity of one of them shocks Nelle. This is an excellent book but I found that it went on too long. It could have done with being cut back a little bit as it dragged on in a few places. 480 pages is far too long. ( ) obsessedwithbooks | May 24, 2009 |  no reviews | add a review
Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0345476158, Hardcover)The ancient order of the Knights Templar possessed untold wealth and absolute power over kings and popes . . . until the Inquisition, when they were wiped from the face of the earth, their hidden riches lost. But now two forces vying for the treasure have learned that it is not at all what they thought it was–and its true nature could change the modern world.Cotton Malone, one-time top operative for the U.S. Justice Department, is enjoying his quiet new life as an antiquarian book dealer in Copenhagen when an unexpected call to action reawakens his hair-trigger instincts–and plunges him back into the cloak-and-dagger world he thought he’d left behind. It begins with a violent robbery attempt on Cotton’s former supervisor, Stephanie Nelle, who’s far from home on a mission that has nothing to do with national security. Armed with vital clues to a series of centuries-old puzzles scattered across Europe, she means to crack a mystery that has tantalized scholars and fortune-hunters through the ages by finding the legendary cache of wealth and forbidden knowledge thought to have been lost forever when the order of the Knights Templar was exterminated in the fourteenth century. But she’s not alone. Competing for the historic prize–and desperate for the crucial information Stephanie possesses–is Raymond de Roquefort, a shadowy zealot with an army of assassins at his command. Welcome or not, Cotton seeks to even the odds in the perilous race. But the more he learns about the ancient conspiracy surrounding the Knights Templar, the more he realizes that even more than lives are at stake. At the end of a lethal game of conquest, rife with intrigue, treachery, and craven lust for power, lies a shattering discovery that could rock the civilized world–and, in the wrong hands, bring it to its knees. (retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:04 -0400) The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details. |
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Wikipedia in English (1)
Alas, one of the things that did stick out for me was the treatment of female characters. The central female protagonist is constantly blamed, by herself and others, for not "standing by her man", supporting her husband's possibly-kooky research without question. As a female of the species, I found this annoying. Perhaps I overreact, but that character's unlikeable nature and general lack of agency rubbed me the wrong way. (