Steve Berry's The Templar Legacy spins the medieval destruction of the Knights Templar into a contemporary conspiracy of daunting proportions. Originally, the Templars were a militaristic monastic order designed to protect travelers to the Holy Land. From their humble beginnings, however, they became one of the richest, most powerful forces in all of the medieval world. In 1307, the king of France opted to dissolve the order and accused its members of not only heresy but perversity as well. The order's last grand master, Jacques de Molay, was burned at the stake in 1311. Unfortunately for the French king (although to the delight of countless writers since), the order's purportedly boundless riches were never recovered.
Borrowing a page from Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code, Berry's novel presupposes that the treasure of the Templars is not simply gold or precious jewels looted from countless sites across the Holy Land, but something more elusive: a secret that stands at the heart of the west's religious traditions, and one that has secretly divided the church from within for centuries.
Former U.S. agent Cotton Malone has retired early and now spends his days pleasantly engaged as an antiquarian book dealer in Copenhagen. One day, however, he receives an unexpected call from Stephanie Nelle, a former superior who would like a bit of assistance. When Cotton foils what appears to be an attempted mugging involving Stephanie and the thief flings himself from a tower to avoid capture, Malone's instincts are engaged. He knows something isn't quite right, a conclusion that will shortly prove amazingly accurate.
Nelle is in Copenhagen on a mission that has nothing to do with U.S. national security. Instead, it is a personal matter involving her husband's apparent suicide several years before. Her husband was an expert on the Templars and had long been on the track of their mysterious treasure. Now Stephanie is somewhat reluctantly following in his footsteps, in part because of a sense of obligation stemming from the recent loss of her son, and in part because of a mysterious packet she recently received.
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