Customer Reviews

The Templar's Penance (Knights Templar)

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Watch for this engrossing historical novel/mystery in November: it comes steeped in the atmosphere and flavor of the Middle Ages and tells of a former knight Templar Sir Furnshill and Puttock, his sleuth sidekick. With a tone of Holmes set in medieval times, the two investigate a Spanish murder during a pilgrimage while facing a threat from the past. Fast-paced and highly recommended.

Pilgrimages are for penance and a person in penance is a person with something to hide. From Chaucer's time to today the setting of the holy pilgrimage is a storyteller's dream when it comes to believably mixing diverse characters and delving into the various psychological struggles and temptations we face as human beings. In "The Templar's Penance" author Michael Jecks places the now familiar pilgrimage in an exotic setting as the main character Sir Baldwin, an English knight and former templar, goes on a pilgrimage of penance to the Cathredal of Compostela in Spain. Traveling with Baldwin is his friend Simon, a Devonshire bailiff, and a good man to know in a fight.

After the hardships of a pilgrimage taken over sea and land, once in the rough and tumble town of Compostela they inadvertently stumble onto the horrific corpse of a young woman brutally raped and murdered. Judging themselves to be seasoned crime detectives, Baldwin and Simon offer to assist the local investigator, the pesquisidore, Munio. But they find themselves increasingly baffled as the temper in town grows more chaotic. Another seemingly unconnected murder ensues along with random violent attacks upon the other pilgrims. The machinations to steal a saintly relic throws up so great a smoke screen that nearly all of the pilgrims appear to have a motive for murder. Each man's mettle of mind, body and spirit is tested as they struggle to solve this mystery in a strange land.

Jecks is a fine storyteller with a great love and knowledge of the medieval period. There is a lot of action, but also a lot of brutal violence. Thankfully, Jecks, unlike modern crime fiction, does not linger lovingly over every terrible bloody detail. But disquietingly, at least in this fictitious medieval world, people die left and right, often for no good reason. The characters of Sir Charles and Paul especially disturbed me. During a bar fight they kill everyone present. Particularly chilling was just before leaving Paul goes back into the tavern to clean up a loose end; he swiftly kills a child who had hidden during the carnage, but who was the only remaining witness. The reader meets them as psychopathic killers but in the conclusion of the story they are traveling back to England with Baldwin and Simon and are treated much more sympathetically. Jecks goes to great lengths to round out each character with a personal history, but I never could drum up much sympathy for these two as I could for the albeit brutal, but much mistreated renegade peasantry.

Now you will remind me that life in the Middle Ages was not rosy and I agree. If you often find cozy mysteries to be too syrupy, and hate laying awake at nights reliving modern crime fictions' overly enthusiastic descriptions of blood and gore, then you will happily discover Jecks' tale to offer a palatable mixture of complexity and realism along with satisfying the reader's need for reassurance that justice is done by all.

It is summer 1323, Sir Baldwin and Simon are about to leave on a pilgrimage. They are going to travel across Europe to Santiago de Compostela. Foreign travel is dangerous even for well armed men, and attacks on pilgrims are common place, but an even greater menace hangs over the city of Santiago.
For those who have not ready any of Michael Jecks medieval novels I can recommend them heartily. This novel takes Simon and Sir Baldwin away from their West Country environment but loses nothing of its mystery and suspense. If you like medieval mysteries, these are as good as any around.

Jenks knows how to write and tell a good story that is historically accurate. A really good "whodunit."