Book Review: The Templar Legacy by Steve Berry

First off, I want to point out that I like mysteries, and ancient mysteries are great. There are few organizations in history that have taken the imagination of the world like the Templars, a 200 year old fighting brotherhood that rose quickly, and declined almost as fast. Fascinated with where the story would go, I kept reading.

The writing was great in a lot of areas, but a little, um, forced in others. jumps in logic needed to be made, and sometimes obvious decisions were ho-hummed by the characters for so long it became tedious. There were also some inconsistencies in the way the characters were thinking. Some characters even started to blend in together, and when not specifically identified, were difficult to tell apart. Also, the standard epic formula was pretty transparent, though I admit I look for it in every book I read.

And then the religious agenda was thrown in, questioning the divinity of Jesus of Nazareth. Regardless of your personal beliefs, attacking a religion isn't good form in my book. This was a personal aversion to the obvious bias of the author, and not a reflection of the literary abilities of the author.

But the good parts of the book were fabulous! I loved the historical references, the focus on the past and the future. And the knowledge that each location in some form or another exists today was great. The author clearly did his research. This book kept my attention about 2/3rds of the time, if not one hundred percent of the time.