Review: A Look at the Middle East at the Time of the Crusades
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 01 24, 2014
It is hard to find much of a plot line in this book, the story skips around a lot.  I expected it to contain a good deal about the training and teaching that a youth went through in order to become a Templar knight during the time of the Crusades.  The apprentice part is a stretch.  We first meet the hero of the novel, Honfroy, when he is a squire. He is not attached to any knight so I would guess he would be called a free roaming squire.  But, he is soon knighted after he and four other squires defeat a squadron  of heavily armed and mounted Saracen soldiers in open combat.  Later he becomes a lord of the realm with a large estate. That all seems to happen too quickly. Honfroy is, after all, only 18 years old.There is a lot of action as he helps his  friend  King Baudoin  of the Kingdom of Jerusalem defend his kingdom and  is also called upon by the Templar Grand Master to fight the Sultan of Egypt and Syria.  Skill in the martial arts are not enough as he faces political intrigue, treachery, secret liaisons,  banishment and lost friendships.There is just not a build up to a climax in this novel.  Honfroy seems to go from skirmishes to battles to rescuing damsels in distress, to acquiring a large cache of gold, to fallings out with the King and the Grand Master, to reconciliations, to gaining an inheritance, to one final battle that seems to resolve nothing. The dialogue is not that good and most of the characters are really not fleshed out. One can get a sense of what it was like in the Middle East during the time of the Crusades and there is a lot of action if that is what one enjoys.