The Templar Magician

Starred review from September 26, 2011
The real-life murder of Count Raymond of Tripoli in 1152 kicks off Doherty’s excellent second Templar historical (after 2010’s The Templar). Templar Grand Master Bertrand Tremelai promptly orders the arrest of French Templar knight Edmund de Payens, who witnessed the assassination, for both not protecting the count and not apprehending his killers. De Payens later hears that the power behind the hit was the prince of the Islamic heretics known as the Naziris, but the knight’s instincts tell him the explanation may be more complex. Meanwhile, de Payens’s influential patron, William Trussell, raises concerns about the Templars’ future. Trussell believes there’s a link between looser standards for admission to the order and rumors of its involvement in human sacrifice. De Payens’s perilous quest for the truth behind what happened in Tripoli takes him to England, where he uncovers a shocking but logical solution to the crime.

November 1, 2011
A dedicated member of the Knights Templar is caught up in a mystery he feels obliged to solve. When Edmund de Payens, the great-nephew of the Templars' founder, and his fellow knight, Englishman Philip Mayele, are given the job of protecting Count Raymond, they fail miserably. The Count is murdered before their eyes in the streets of Tripoli, and a horrendous bloodbath ensues. After they're punished by the Grand Master, Bertrand Tremelai, the two knights, together with the mysterious Thierry Parmenio, are sent on a mission to visit the leader of the Assassins in a remote, stunningly beautiful fortress high in the hills of Outremer (modern-day Palestine). Although the group is traveling under safe conduct, Edmund learns that there is a blood feud with his host, who nevertheless provides him with warnings and a coded message he is unable to decipher. Upon their return, the three are almost killed in a fierce battle to take a nearly impregnable fortress. Escaping with their lives, they're sent to accompany Richard Berrington and his beautiful sister to England, now locked in civil war between rival claimants to the throne, and ordered to warn King Stephen of danger and find the Englishman known as Walkyn, a dangerous killer rumored to have magical powers. Once in England, Edmund, finding death and treason on every street, realizes that he must use every skill he possesses to stay alive and protect the Order of Templars. In a departure from his 14th-century series (Nightshade, 2011, etc.), Doherty offers up a neatly turned puzzle set in 1152, a period of blood-soaked terror in both England and Palestine.

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