Reads like a drama film. The last Templar is often compared to The DaVinci Code and I can see why. I enjoyed the dram build up of the story line, but the main characters—Riley and Tess—felt underdeveloped. The world around them was so rich but their choices sorts obvious and without agency. With the exception of one instance(Tess drives away) the story went linearly. Overall, a great modern day religious drama that could be turned into a movie easily.

If this hadn't been they only audio book I had available, I would have quit listening and gone on to something else.

The first chapter sucked me in but from there it was pretty disappointing. The characters are all unbelievable. Khoury tries to write each from its own perspective but he doesn't go deep enough making them seem two-dimensional. Religion bashing exposes lack of understanding of people who believe in a Good and the Templar history town in seems fictional (and maybe it is but he could have done better). I won't be revisiting seies/author.

I loved the experience of reading this aloud to my bride more than the story itself. Also, the words themselves frustrated me throughout with various annoying grammatical blahs - using the same word more than once in a sentence like "headed" (as in "headed to the beach") and overuse of "realized" (as in "she realized she wanted to do xyz") and even on a few pages, repeating the same thought or narration as if the author forgot he had already written it. Maybe one more pass with an editor would have caught this. I hate to even write this given the journey Khoury took to even get this published after so many years between writing it and its publication. But points off for that.

I also was frustrated with the characterization of Tess. Maybe it was a product of writing in the 1990s, but she was at times a strong independent woman, but more often the story drifted into "I need a man to save me" tropeland. Points off for that.

But, I have to admit, the story "got" me emotionally invested, as I remarked out loud on several occasions my visceral reaction to the heresy (speaking from the perspective of a believer) at the heart of the story. I haven't read any books like this before although I certainly am aware of the Dan Brown legacy (even though this book was written prior to Dan Brown's Robert Langdon series) where church heresy can make for a powerful story. But I actually give it points for this category, as the book succeeded in sucking me into the story. (Plus bonus points for how it ended.)

There were several predictable turns of events. Usually I don't see surprise twists coming but these, I did. There were also several times I interrupted myself to shout out at the characters to not do or to do something because I thought they were being dumb, which again could be considered positive as I was obviously invested emotionally! So maybe these points off/points on balance each other out.

Finally, there were parts of the story that read like a history text. One character would get on his preacher or professor (or both) pedestal and give pages-long exposition of the past. Khoury had a lot of history to explain at certain times, and am wondering if it could have been exposed differently. Reading aloud, those were the most difficult as it seemed the history lesson dragged on...

Overall I liked the story, but I didn't really like it. The chapters set in the past were the most interesting, actually. I liked the idea of the dual-storytelling: setting up events in the past, then seeing how artifacts from those eras are traced to and discovered in the present. And I definitely enjoyed the experience reading aloud, although apparently I need to figure out what a proper Greek accent is supposed to be. I kept thinking of that pistachio-eating Greek, Milos Columbo, from the James Bond movie, For Your Eyes Only, but even then I couldn't quite remember his accent, so I just imagined I had a mouthful of pistachios. I don't think it was very accurate. LOL

3 out of 5 Templar Conspiracies!

This was a nice mystery with a few romantic subplots thrown in for good measure. I liked the Knights Templar history lesson & enjoyed how the author wove the historical thread through the modern-day narrative. A bit more violent than I thought it would be, but the Crusades weren't exactly Disneyland. I've put the sequel on hold at the library, so I will see what happens next!

This is the 3rd book I have read that dealt with the story of the knights of the Templar. I have found each one to have some commonality while the mystery of the treasure different in each book. This novel did not disappoint.

so far so good!