Customer Reviews

The Templar Throne (Templar, Book 3)

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This is a fast-paced thriller along the lines of the Da Vinci code (which is alluded to often, in a derogatory manner, by the main characters in the novel). Sinister conspiracies are uncovered as the plot progresses.
It's a decent airplane or holiday read, but I was irritated by unlikely events and factual errors. For example, longitude and latitude were incorrectly explained, a museum in Cornwall charged Euros (not Pounds) for entry, and the main characters drove hundred of kilometers across Europe in a rental car instead of going by train or plane as would be much faster and easier.
I didn't like the characters in this fantasy dinging the characters in the Da Vinci code, justifiably or not.

Book three in the Holliday series. It's good enough. I don't expect Paul Christopher to write exceptionally good books. His first book in the Finn Ryan series had me writing him off. I forgot I didn't want to read him and bought two more because I recognized the name Finn Ryan. It wasn't until I read the third book that I thought Paul Christopher was worth the price of a cheap paperback.

I like the Holliday series because I like the hero. To me, the series is entertaining enough. I bought this for my Kindle.

Despite all the criticisms I've laid on the other two books in this series, I still find his writing readable. In this one, he goes after the ark of the covenant with the help of a nun.

It is once again, a race with time and relentless pursuers.

As with his other books, he has a thing about Dan Brown which I am beginning to believe is just a plot device and not a personal disdain for the author or his books. The same can be said for his criticism of big government, the Catholic church, the American and Canadian governments, and all that. I don't take it personally.

Also, as before, he likes to describe things in excruciating detail, to the point where I would forget what he was describing by the time I got to the end of the long one or two paragraphs (or more).

The pace moves right along and what I like is there are breathers for the characters to interact and think about things. However, as before, the actual action scenes always seem a bit anticlimactic, as if thrown in there to get to the next scene description.

Despite all, there are enough plot twists, location changes, and interaction with characters that it kept me glued to my seat. What makes this book a good one in my mind is that when I am reading during commercials, they aren't distracting me (that is a big problem with the book I am currently reading). With the Templar Throne, I was thoroughly engaged. I finished it while on vacation and it was perfect for the beach or in the hotel room.

As for factual errors, I could care less. Whatever errors there are, I wouldn't know unless it was something I specifically knew to be wrong, or the fact was so out there, I'd have to scratch my head. I never ran across that, but then again, I'm not medieval history buff or an expert on the Catholic church.

All in all, it was a fun read and I will certainly pick up the next one. I just wonder how much more oomph he could have put into the action scenes instead of describing everything ad-nauseum. Still recommended.

Overall, I found this series (the "Templar" books) to be interesting and great for light reading but with numerous factual mistakes that I found distracting. When I see factual mistakes in parts that I know well, it always makes the parts that I don't know well seem suspect.

In The Templar Cross, the main character, supposedly a graduate of and instructor at West Point, "recognizes" a fake cadet on R-Day because the cadet is wearing his class ring on the left hand and has a five o'clock shadow. That's just bizarre. Especially given that most West Pointers (contrary to the drawn out explanation in the book) actually DO wear their class rings on their left hand. And if they are married, they wear them with their wedding band on the same finger. The REAL tip-off would have been that the cadet was wearing a ring at all. On R-day (usually around July 1), the first class cadets (seniors) have not received their class rings yet. They don't get them until ring weekend usually in the beginning of September. A turned-back December grad would have one but they are not very common. And I knew cadets that seemed to have a five o'clock shadow 10 minutes after they shaved. I do like the touch though where Holliday goes back to his quarters and lights a fire. Sorry but no fire necessary in July in West Point. That's minor but funny.

There are other mistakes throughout the books. The author repeatedly refers to the main character as wearing an Army Ranger uniform. Well, first there is not really an Army Ranger uniform - only an Army uniform. Ranger qualified personnel wear a ranger tab on their uniform. Members of the Ranger Regiment wear tan berets. People on jump status (including members of the Ranger Regiment) wear jump boots with bloused uniform trousers. The main character is a professor at West Point and would wear a standard Army uniform with a ranger tab on his shoulder. He would not wear a tan beret and would not wear jump boots with his uniform.

In "Cross", two West Pointers are talking and one tells Holliday that he'll be met by another person, "a Pointer". I'm a grad of WP and I've never heard two grads talk the way these two do. He also meets a Marine that he recognizes as a West Point grad. That's not completely impossible but so rare as to make me wonder whether the author knows that graduates of West Point serve in the Army, not the Marines.

I understand that what annoys me here is probably not very important. However, if you make your main character a West Point graduate and Army officer then hopefully you're doing it because it is a subject you know well and can write convincely. (Another that does this poorly and repeatedly is Lee Child with his main character - Jack Reacher. But don't get me started.) The author fails at this. And, as I said, to me the real implication is to wonder what else he has wrong that I wouldn't recognize.

I have enjoyed all the Templar novels and look forward to the Templar Conspiracy.

However, Christopher's theology is better than his horsemanship:

"She was wearing formal riding clothers, including tall black boots and jodhpurs." (p.377)
Tall black boots are worn over breeches which fit the calf closely. Jodhpur pants fit the lower leg more loosely and are secured just below the knee. Black boots won't fit over jodhpur pants. Formal black boots reach to the knee. Jodhpur boots are brown and reach to the ankle.

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