(Another in a series of back-looged posts from my book log that I've been forgetting to post here...)
The Apocalypse Door by James D. Macdonald. James Macdonald is one of the authors of the Mageworlds series (see A Working of Stars), as enjoyable a space opera as you're likely to find anywhere. In this book, he turns his hand to something a little different-- a hard-boiled story about a good man fighting the forces of Evil. Peter Crossman's not your average PI, though:
Yeah, I'm a Knight of the Temple. We didn't go away in the fourteenth century, no matter what Phillip the Fair tried to pull. The Order has a mission and we're carrying it out. To protect holy places, travelers in holy places, and certain relics. Straightforward. You'd think that people would let us just get on with it.
But no. Warrior monks make too good a target, especially when they've got a lot of assets and the King of France doesn't. So it was accusations of witchcraft, sodomy, and sacrilege; confiscation of worldly goods, the thumbscrew and the stake; and time for all good little Templars to find urgent business abroad. But that's all ancient history-- Anno Domini 1307, to be exact-- and this story is about now.
The premise alone is worth the price of the book. As a bonus, it's also a pretty good story, adding a rivalry with the Teutonic Knights, an order of assassin nuns, and evil relics dredged from a Russian lake. Not to mention plenty of James Bond gadgetry, and great caper scenes. Things Go Fast, they Blow Up, and a Dark Menace of indeterminate origin is defeated.
The only thing that doesn't quite work is a plot thread tying the present-day action into the narrator's obligatory Dark Past, but even that is mostly well executed. And again, the premise alone is enough to make this a fun read.
Apparently, some short stories featuring this character have been published in various anthologies. One more thing to add to the list of things I look for in used book stores.
(Originally posted on The Library of Babel.)
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