The Last Templar [Import] [Paperback]

Raymond Khoury (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 480 pages
• Publisher: Signet (2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0752880705
• ISBN-13: 978-0752880709
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.3 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.9 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #306,008 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I was born in Beirut, a Scorpio and the youngest of three. The civil war broke out there when I was 14 and my parents, in a noble effort to keep us alive into adulthood, wisely moved us to Rye, NY. I stayed there until I graduated from Rye Country Day School, then, intent on thwarting my parents' nurturing instincts, I decided to go back to Lebanon to study architecture at the American University of Beirut. Which, in hindsight, wasn't as nutty a decision as you might think. Those years, marred by repeated flare-ups of fighting and a couple of invasions, were emotionally taxing, harrowing, sometimes dangerous, often maddeningly frustrating, but always intense in the most visceral sense of the word and, weirdly enough, I wouldn't have missed them for the world. Maybe that's the Scorpio in me...

So there I was, gingerly studying architecture in the hopes of one day helping rebuild the city (rumours that a local cabal of intensely purist architects was having ugly buildings selectively blown up remain unproven). The civil war erupted again a few weeks after I graduated, and I was evacuated out from the beach down the road from our apartment on a sunny but sad day in February, 1984, by the Marine Corp's 22nd Amphibious Unit on board a Chinook helicopter, to whom I'll be eternally grateful (the Marines, not the chopper).

I ended up in London, where I joined a small architecture practice. The architecture scene in Europe was pretty bleak at that time, so I decided to explore other career options. I got an MBA at INSEAD in Fontainebleau, France, and joined an investment bank, selling gold-linked convertibles and other far less exotic financial instruments, surrounded by Gekko wannabes and hating waking up every day. In fairness, I have to credit those 'wilderness' years with one wonderful thing: meeting my gorgeous wife, who tolerated my exhausting yearnings for something more fulfilling and eventually gave me two incredible daughters.

I left the glamorous (at the time, anyway) world of investment banking after three years to return to my creative roots. I bounced around for a while, trying different things, and during a business trip to the Bahamas (don't ask), I met a banker who dabbled in the film business. I've always been a film geek and harbored a burning desire to make movies, so at dinner one night, I bounced an idea off him, and the idea struck a chord. I had a new partner, and we agreed to develop my idea into a screenplay -- by hiring a professional screenwriter he'd worked with.

Several conference calls later, the outlines coming back from Los Angeles weren't what I had in mind. I offered to write an outline myself. When I faxed my notes to my partner (yes, this was in the early 90s, long before email), he called me up and said, "Our man in L.A. isn't going to write this movie for us. You are. You're a writer."

So I did. And it got shortlisted for the Fulbright Fellowship in Screenwriting award, which I had to apply for under a friend's name (I wasn't eligible, but that's another long story). My next script, a semi-autobiographical screenplay about my college years during the war, was also nominated for the award a year later. Then the next year, in 1995, I optioned the film rights to Melvyn Bragg's novel, THE MAID OF BUTTERMERE and wrote the adaptation myself while completing an original screenplay called... THE LAST TEMPLAR. Buttermere found its way to Robert DeNiro, who announced in Variety that he would be producing it and playing the lead. The Last Templar... well, if you're reading this, you know that after ten years or so, it managed the quantum leap off my laptop's hard drive and into novel form, but that's a longer story, one I'll go through in a separate post...

Since then, and after working as a screenwriter and a producer on shows like the BBC series Spooks, (MI-5 in the US), I'm now solely focused on the novels, the fifth of which is THE DEVIL'S ELIXIR.

And that's about it... Thanks for taking the time to explore my ramblings, and if you do pick up one of my books, I hope you have a blast reading it. And let me know-connect with me on facebook on my Official Fan Page (and NOT on one of the others that I don't manage!). Enjoy!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Move it to the Children's Section?, July 16, 2006

By 

Sanjay Agarwal (India) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Last Templar, The SIGNED***LINED***TRUE FIRST (Paperback)

This book is another in a series of novels which use a conspiring church as the backdrop for their plot. In a sense, another attmept at da Vinci Code, perhaps inspired by the Code's phenomenal success. The author also uses more or less the same formula: a ghastly event at a museum, an attractive female archaeologist, a straight male companion (this time an FBI detective), a wicked priest(?), and a deadly church secret in the background.

Some of the touches that the author uses are an improvment on Dan Brown. For instance, there is a philosophical duel between faith and ratinality that the FBI detective fights within himself. Similarly, the initial scene about the museum robbery is quite vivid and spectacular and you can easily visualise the drama that goes on. Instead of being a sample of what is to come, the author gets a little lost thereafter, stretching coincidences across two continents, so that they all start looking extremely contrived. Possibly the museum scene comes out so well because Khoury is primarily a screen-writer.

In terms of characterisation, the FBI detective comes out very well. Similarly, the older archaelogist comes through with some conviction. The lady archaelogist is done in a weaker manner. However, the weakest work is the priest (?). His motivation, the background to his skills, is never filled in. Therefore, it is more difficult to understand his character. In fact, it may not be easy to figure out whether he was really a priest or a secret agent.

Talking of secrets, the Templar secret, over which they are supposed to have blackmailed the Church, itself comes out as a bit of a disappointment. The ending is interesting, in the sense that it is not anti-faith, but is somewhat disappointing, because the build-up is weak.

The weakest part of the book is the plot, which is full of unbeliveable coincidences. In Angels and Demons, Dan Brown does some manipulation of laws of probability to accomodate the development of his plot. In this book, Raymond Khoury simply assumes that no such laws exist. He also ignores how the US Government works (brining a priest into FBI meetings, and allowing him to dominate the meetings), and how the Vatican works (the link between CIA, the priest and the Vatican is never cleared up).

The result is a book which you can enjoy if you treat it as children's fiction.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Great basic idea but not what you might expect, July 3, 2006

By 

ALu69 (Hamburg, Germany) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Last Templar (Paperback)

In 1291 a ship sets sails to escape the defeat of the city Acre (Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem). The Knights Templar on board are to protect the secret they carry with them at all costs. But the ship never reaches its destination.

In present day four horsemen dressed as Knights Templar storm the gala opening of an exhibition of Vatican treasures at the Metropolitan Museum in New York. In a bold and bloody attack they steal a medieval decoder and manage to vanish without a trace.

FBI agent Sean Reilly and archaeologist Tess Chaykin (also a witness at the scene) team up to solve the centuries-old mystery - always trying to stay ahead of killers who try to protect the secret at all costs for very different reasons...

The characters and the (predictable) developing love story in the book are quite good. I also liked the idea to put in some chapters that go back to the Knights Templar's journey in 1291 to give the reader a better idea about what happened back then.

But overall the book was not what I expected.

1) I was surprised how easily the FBI traces down 3 of the 4 "Knights Templar" and what they actually are.

2) The identity of the master mind behind the robbery is revealed too soon and also just too "simple".

3) The book then takes off in a completely unexpected direction - chasing down the lost ship. (How they got they idea where to search exactly is still a riddle to me.) Unfortunately this is a very large part of the book and it never gets back into anything that I was hoping for. The book's original idea of a search for bold thieves turns into a deep diving treasure hunt on a different continent which reminded me of a Dirk Pitt adventure (Clive Cussler's books).

OK, a different direction as expected does not need to be bad - it might be a positive surprise. But in this case it was not because this part was too long and not that thrilling. And it took the focus of the reader on a completely different area.

Unfortunately there are other aspects that spoilt the fun for me:

Throughout the book there are just too many coincidences that make the book less and less believable. The wrong person always shows up at exactly the right moment for him to make his move. Therefore the book is kind of unwillingly "funny" or ridiculous sometimes.

Te ending was also disappointing to me. Might be because I am not religious but I just wished for something else. (In order not to spoil the fun I cannot reveal more in more detail.)

Bottom line:

The basic idea of the book starting with the four Knights Templar's very bold robbery at the museum is really good. Also the combination of today's knowledge and the centuries-old mystery made me want to read the book. (Having read several other fiction books about the secrets of the Knights Templar already I just had to know what secret it is here that made the Knights Templar so untouchable and wealthy.)

The book is easy to read and entertaining but it won't keep you up all night. And it is not nearly as gripping as e. g. Dan Brown's books. (To compare the skills of these authors seems like a bad joke to me - but some actually did so!)

5.0 out of 5 stars "The Last Templar" by Raymond Khoury, July 12, 2009

By 

Elizabeth A. Butler "juslibby1" (Talladega, Alabama) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Last Templar (Paperback)

If you like Dan Brown's "DaVinci Code" & "Angels & Demons", you are surely to like Raymond Khoury's "The Last Templar." The paperback book, while used, was still in pretty good condition and was a reasonable price.