Review: If you liked Da Vinci Code(and didn't everybody?), read this!
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 04 26, 2012
I had just finished the final edit of my second "big historical" novel and was looking for something to do with myself until the mock up arrived, so I downloaded this thinking it would be a quick read in a niche I like. What a surprise!I got far more than I bargained for. This is a meticulously reseached, thought provoking, intellectually stimulating  novel set in contemporary times, but which has as much historical research as the most epic historical, together with all of the intrique of the globe hopping international thrillers, and enough religious history to tantalize the most demanding reader of any faith or no faith at all.  It is wrong to characterize this as "religious fiction" any more than it is correct to so characterize the Da Vinci Code. And the writing is superb. I actually budgeted the amount of time I spent reading it yesterday and today so that I could make it last longer. I will very likely read it again. I hate trite tags like "page turner" but the heavy action scenes in the story are indeed that. There are a lot of characters in the book, most of them well defined, and it is fun to try to identify the bad guys, even among the cardinals who populate Vatican City. If I have a single criticism it has to do with the detailed narratives delving into th emechanics of the financial institutions and meetings of theprivate banking institutions and the Vatican Bank.  When the meetings of the financial professionals are presented in dialoque, at least for me that works better. I love the African American female bank overseer, Ms. Jacobs, even though she makes a very brief appearance. The scene in which she appears deals with issues of bank fraud in a way that still manages to move the major storyline forward. But even if the novel stalls in a few places, it is not a book to skim. The writing is too good for that, and the author always returns to the story line before he loses us. I was not surprised to see the size of his 'partial' bibliography. Research for my first two Queen of Scots historicals took up an entire bookcase and a big chuck of my harddrive. Writing a book like Templar Agenda is an amazing effort and this is a triumphant one. Reading it has been an adventure I would not want to have missed.