Customer Reviews

The Last Templar

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(13)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I have mixed feelings about this book. It has tremendous promise, with two interesting (though not yet fully developed) characters and the relationship between them to form the core of the stories. But the book read like a first draft. It needed editing, polishing and paring down to bring the story to life.

For instance, as many others have mentioned, Jecks tends to use the same phrases, words and sentence constructs repeatedly. The most noticeable (and annoying) of these was his constant use of the phrase "as if"(as in: "...it seemed as if the whole city was there..." or "it seemed as if the people of Paris know ..." I'll wager he's used that term a thousand times through the book. This is no exaggeration - he used it 11 times in the first two pages! Sometimes, he uses it twice in a single sentence.

Jecks also doesn't seem to understand the need to establish a consistent point of view. Although he normally uses the third person point of view (Simon), he lapses occasionally into the omniscient POV, letting us in on the thoughts of various characters. This would be fine, but you can't be selective in that point of view - if we are to be privy to a character's thoughts at all, we should have access to them always. You can't, on one page, tell the reader what a certain character is thinking, then hide that characters' thoughts from the readers at a more critical point of the story.

The book also suffers from the common "sit down and I'll tell you the whole thing" ending, where all the motivation, etc., is summarized in a long (VERY long) explanation at the end.

Then, there is the problem of typos in the text (like "trail" for "trial.") Not a major flaw (I'd hate to be judged on MY typos!) but another indication that the book was not thoroughly edited.

Finally (and the following may be considered a SPOILER, so be careful), I am not sure I can consider one of the main characters a "hero" after reading the ending and knowing what he did. I don't care about the motives. Knowing this person was so cold blooded as to kill the way he did will make it difficult for me to accept him as one of the main protagonists in future novels.

I already have two more in the series in my library and I may very well read them someday. But unlike many of the other historical mysteries in my collection, I doubt if I'll be in a big rush to get to them.

By the way, if you like historical mysteries in the Cadfael mold, give the books by Kate Sedley a try. They're a bit hard to come by, but they are excellent and have one of the most likeable protagonists I've come across yet. They are among my favorite books in the genre.

The Last Templar was first published in 1995, but I only came across this series recently. I have always been interested in medieval mysteries (a la Cadfael) and in Templars in particular, so this immediately struck my attention. I have no doubt that this series was restocked on bookshelves due to the Da Vinci Code book / movie and subsequent interest in this topic.

This is clearly a "setting up" book - i.e. you're introduced to the main characters, their relationships are established, their world is established. I was willing to cut the book some slack therefore, in the sometimes tedious descriptions and motive-explaining. Like with any series, you have to learn who the people are in the beginning, so that their actions and reasons in subsequent books make sense to you.

You have a Templar who has hidden out after the infamous Friday the 13th mass destruction of his order. He's returned to his family holding in England to retire there in anonymity. You also have a 30-something local authority person who is married with a young daughter, who handles all law issues in the land. Just like in Cadfael and other mystery series, the two team up to figure out "who done it". The Templar - Baldwin - is world wise and very intelligent. The local - Simon - is a bit dense but has a good enough heart and wants to plow through to bring justice.

I love the medieval era so I did have several issues with historical accuracy here. I like to be immersed in the "time culture" when I read about olden times - but it's often more like modern people had time-travelled to the past and were living there. The wife harasses the husband for doing his job - tracking down a murderer, remember - rather than playing with the daughter. People always seem to know exactly what time it is, when many people didn't have access to a town clock, never mind personal timepieces. There are many other issues like this. It's not that they were huge, gaping holes - but it was more like water torture where each little thing struck you to build up.

I did notice the typos and such, but I don't mind those. It did seem to indicate that a better editor was needed for the series.

In general my big issue is how characters quickly dismiss important clues, or completely give up on certain issues, when we're talking about murders which are very rare (according to the characters). Surely they should care about each clue! Also, the Abbott's murder seemed rather extreme in the context of this situation. The long winded explanation for it was also a bit much. I agree that the Abbott needed to be punished, but I can imagine many scenarios where his punishment was done in a way that was proper for the story setting, instead of coming across as a raving lunatic attack.

In any case, I do like the setting and always have hope for an author to learn as he goes, so I will plow ahead with the series!

Michael Jecks is off to a good start. Sir Baldwin is both knight and monk - the best realized of these characters - although where did he receive release from his vows that make it now possible for him to see marriage in his future? Sir Rodney ("my sword is my right") is probably more typical 14th century knight. Simon the Bailiff has lovely 19th-century relationship with his wife, child and priest. I am looking forward to the next in the series - and seeing this author develop his skill and historical depth. Good work, but not yet in the league with Dunnett or Ellis or Margaret Fraser or Sharan Newman.

Since I am very interested in England in the MA and was looking for another Mytery series set at that time and location, I bought the first three books out of the Medieval Westcountry series.

Boy, was I disappointed!

One of the characters in this book, John Black, is "obviously impatient with the long story" (p. 254)...so was I. After fortunately finishing this book yesterday I keep wondering how s/o can waste so much paper and so much of readers' time without really telling anything of substance whatsoever!

The book started out good, but got more and more unintriguing and meaningless by the page.

The main characters dawdle around to solve two murders that have happened and Simon Puttock, the protagonist, keeps asking himself WHY the murders have happened without really getting anywhere.

Mr. Jecks seems to have a fondness for certain words, which he uses over and over, hence giving the impression his vocabluary is not very extensive.

I should have paid more attention to the other reviews before buying the first three books out of this series. It would have saved me a lot of money and precious time I could have spend reading far better medieval mysteries.

I live in hope that the next two books in this series, which are lurking in my bookcase, are A LOT better than this one.

I just read The Last Templar, and look forward to reading more in this new series. The characters overall are interesting, and I wanted to learn more about the two 'detectives' who, in the first book, are just getting to know each other. The plot is complicated without being overwhelming, and uses political and military events of the day in a plausible and satisfying way. I found some of the descriptions too long and overwritten, but look to see tighter prose in the next books. I love this genre and am always glad to see new authors entering the lists!

Michael Jecks faces almost an insurmountable problem in writing a mystery involving the Templars, having grown to maturity in contemporary society. He does not have the sense of place and time exemplified in the Brother Cadfael series. He also appears to believe what his teachers taught him about the Templars.....too bad.

Modern writers tend to forget that the Templars were a religious order. The Templar was first and foremost a religious brother. They were members of a Catholic order. Jecks writes as if the Templars were a men-only country club, with Sir Baldwin having his own live-in caddy.

The parish priest described by Jecks is more a modern Anglican vicar than a Catholic priest of the 14th century. Simon Puttock never even attends the Mass, not very likely for the time.

The thoughts and actions attributed to Pope Clement by Jecks are factually incorrect in the details. Pope Clements did not find the Templars guilty of the crimes for which they stood accused, and while he did disestablish the Order, he did not suppress it.

Continuing a myth, Jecks describes Jacques de Molay as the "Grand Master" of the Templars. There was no such title in the Order.

Set in my favorite part of England, however, and bringing to mind these places so familiar to me, I could naught but enjoy this good read, despite the irritatingly bad history which otherwise taints it.

I like a good historical mystery. This, alas, is not one of them.

The title looked promising when I found it on the bookstore shelf, so I thought I'd give it a try. Several pages in, I realized this was not going to be the book I'd expected.

The plot begins promisingly enough with a mysterious death in a burning house, yet the narration is flawed by multiple anachronisms, from highly modern attitudes about class and gender, to misnamed characters (if a man is named Brewer or Tanner, then he ought to BE a brewer or a tanner, not a farmer), to the use of "Mrs." several centuries before it appeared in the English language, giving the whole a feeling of a modern mystery in medieval costume.

Three deaths in the book all involve fire, so (WARNING! PLOT SPOILERS AHEAD!) one might expect them to be related. The author encourages this belief, but lets us down when we realize that two are merely red herrings and lead the protagonist away from the perpetrator of the one, heinous crime that is meant to be the "real" crime in the book. Yet at the end, the perpetrator gets away after a long, rambling justification, and goes on to be a recurring character in the rest of the series. Besides, it was glaringly obvious who "dunnit," even if the main character couldn't figure it out until the last few pages.

Knowing that this character had, in cold blood, destroyed another human being so horribly, regardless of how the act might be justified, has curbed any desire in me to look into the rest of the series.

I was really looking forward to this book and reading the entire series but after this first one I will have to hold off on the rest.

The mystery itself was OK at best but what really bothered me was the supposed historical setting. The characters are far to progress and "PC" for the 14th century. There is a whole section where the villagers are being questioned about what they were doing one evening and over and over again they refer to time like "seven o'clock", "a little past eleven" and "couldn't have been later than eleven thirty"....sorry but villagers in 1316 didn't think in terms like that. They knew sunrise, sunset, moon rise and moon set they would be lucky to have ever seen a clock or time candle. BTW this isn't London this is a village of 7 homes in the middle of nowhere. That really bugged me and showed no research was done on this.

I agree on the typos comments and the phrasings used again and again.

Finally what I really didn't understand was when the author used terms from that time period but then dropped it without explanation. An example was when he talked about a character's daughter's favorite game; he named the game and then moved on. I would have loved to have heard a little about the game. He could have easily slipped in a brief description of the game. "The pegs tumbled as my horse piece moved over the wooden tray." Instead we're left wondering what the heck this is. It would have added a lot to the book.

I will probably read the second in the series but I'm in not rush. (I didn't like O'Brian's first book but ended up loving the series)

I really liked this book. The author tells the tale of the fall of the Templars and incorporates this history into a very entertaining mystery. The characters are vividly described and the crime scenes are equally vivid - a book trait I find necessary in order to become totally absorbed into the storyline. It's a fast read, but not due to a simple story plot. I must admit, I had one of the crimes figured out before the end, but the rest left me guessing with plenty of twists and turns before the final outcome. As a first in a series, this book has done what it should - made me want to read more.

If you read this book expecting Ellis Peters or even Susanna Gregory, you will be disappointed. The story does not measure up to these. But if you read the story wanting to read an entertaining mystery with some interesting characters, you will enjoy the book. I found the writing and the history in this book were somehow lacking, but as I said I will try another in the series before I pass judgement. I like Simon and I like Sir Baldwin, but they talk like modern people. The sense of time and place is not here. The book doesn't take you back like it should. So, I will forego a little authenticity for now, and will see if this improves in subsequent books. In the meantime I just enjoyed the story.