Berry's thriller features rival groups of the Knights Templar searching for lost treasure and a lost secret of the order. They unwittingly involve "Cotton" Malone, a one-time federal agent, now a Copenhagen-based bookseller. Brian Corrigan reads in a likable voice and varies his characters' voices fairly well, though he makes a son and his mother sound overly similar. However, the nasally voice he gives Malone makes him sound like a pest. Still, Corrigan's pacing is fine, his reading skills professional, and his command of the frequent accents good. In the end, though, no narration could make this poorly written novel worthwhile. W.M. © AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine
The Knights Templar, a small monastic military order formed in the early 1100s to protect travelers to the Holy Land, eventually grew and became wealthy beyond imagination. In 1307, the French king, feeling jealous and greedy, killed off the Templars, and by 1311, the last master, Jacques de Molay, was burned at the stake. The whereabouts of the Templars' treasure--and their secrets--have been the subject of legend ever since. Now, a new thriller trieas to follow in the steps of The Da Vinci Code.There's a secret about early Christianity at the core of Berry's Templar Legacy, but he dispenses the clues too slowly. The cat-and-mouse game between Cotton Malone, a former Justice Department agent, and a modern-day order of Knights Templar is weighed down with too much confusing backstory about the Templars' connection to Rennes-le-Chateau and the mystery that surrounds it. (The real-life town plays a part in The Da Vinci Code as well.) Like Dan Brown, Berry draws on the seminal nonfiction work Holy Blood, Holy Grail for many of his themes. After nearly grinding to a halt through all the premise building, the novel finally gathers steam in the last 100 pages or so, concluding with a revelation that seems refreshingly clear after the many convoluted twists that precede it. Until the next Dan Brown opus is released, this should hold devotees. Ilene Cooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
About the Author
Steve Berry is the New York Times and #1 internationally bestselling author of The Lincoln Myth, The King’s Deception, The Columbus Affair, The Jefferson Key, The Emperor’s Tomb, The Paris Vendetta, The Charlemagne Pursuit, The Venetian Betrayal, The Alexandria Link, The Templar Legacy, The Third Secret, The Romanov Prophecy, and The Amber Room. His books have been translated into 40 languages with more than 18,000,000 copies in 51 countries.
History lies at the heart of every Steve Berry novel. It’s this passion, one he shares with his wife, Elizabeth, that led them to create History Matters, a foundation dedicated to historic preservation. Since 2009 Steve and Elizabeth have traveled across the country to save endangered historic treasures, raising money via lectures, receptions, galas, luncheons, dinners, and their popular writers’ workshops. To date, nearly 2,500 students have attended those workshops. In 2012 their work was recognized by the American Library Association, which named Steve the first spokesman for National Preservation Week. He was also appointed by the Smithsonian Board of Regents to serve on the Smithsonian Libraries Advisory Board to help promote and support the libraries in their mission to provide information in all forms to scientists, curators, scholars, students, and the public at large. He has received the Royden B. Davis Distinguished Author Award and the 2013 Writers for Writers Award from Poets & Writers. His novel The Columbus Affair earned him the Anne Frank Human Writes Award, and his historic preservation work merited the 2013 Silver Bullet from International Thriller Writers.
Steve Berry was born and raised in Georgia, graduating from the Walter F. George School of Law at Mercer University. He was a trial lawyer for 30 years and held elective office for 14 of those years. He is a founding member of International Thriller Writers—a group of more than 2,600 thriller writers from around the world—and served three years as its co-president.
For more information, visit www.steveberry.org.
From the Hardcover edition.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
ONE
Copenhagen, Denmark
Thursday, June 22, The Present
2:50 pm
Cotton Malone spotted the knife at the same time he saw Stephanie Nelle. He was sitting at a table outside the Café Nikolaj, comfortable in a white lattice chair. The sunny afternoon was pleasant and Højbro Plads, the popular Danish square that spanned out before him, bristled with people. The café was doing its usual brisk business—the mood feverish—and for the past half hour he’d been waiting for Stephanie.
She was a petite woman, in her sixties, though she never confirmed her age and the Justice Department personnel records that Malone once saw contained only a winking n/a in the space reserved for date of birth. Her dark hair was streaked with waves of silver, and her brown eyes offered both the compassionate look of a liberal and the fiery glint of a prosecutor. Two presidents had tried to make her attorney general, but she’d turned both offers down. One attorney general had lobbied hard to fire her—especially after she was enlisted by the FBI to investigate him—but the White House nixed the idea since, among other things, Stephanie Nelle was scrupulously honest.
In contrast, the man with the knife was short and stout, with narrow features and brush-cut hair. Something haunted loomed on his East European face—a forlornness that worried Malone more than the glistening blade—and he was dressed casually in denim pants and a blood-red jacket.
Malone rose from his seat but kept his eyes trained on Stephanie.
He thought of shouting a warning, but she was too far away and there was too much noise between them. His view of her was mo- mentarily blocked by one of the modernistic sculptures that dotted Højbro Plads—this one of an obscenely obese woman, lying naked on her belly, her obtrusive buttocks rounded like windswept mountains. When Stephanie appeared from the other side of the cast bronze, the man with the knife had moved closer and Malone watched as he severed a strap that draped her left shoulder, jerked a leather bag free, then shoved Stephanie to the flagstones.
A woman screamed and commotion erupted at the sight of a purse snatcher brandishing a knife.
Red Jacket rushed ahead, Stephanie’s bag in hand, and shouldered people out of his way. A few pushed back. The thief angled left, around another of the bronzed sculptures, and finally broke into a run. His route seemed aimed at Købmagergade, a pedestrian-only lane that twisted north, out of Højbro Plads, deeper into the city’s shopping district.
Malone bounded from the table, determined to cut off the assailant before he could turn the corner, but a cluster of bicycles blocked his way. He circled the cycles and sprinted forward, partially orbiting a fountain before tackling his prey.
They slammed into hard stone, Red Jacket taking most of the impact, and Malone immediately noticed that his opponent was muscular. Red Jacket, undaunted by the attack, rolled once, then brought a knee into Malone’s stomach.
The breath left him in a rush and his guts churned.
Red Jacket sprang to his feet and raced up Købmagergade.
Malone stood, but instantly crouched over and sucked a couple of shallow breaths.
Damn. He was out of practice.
He caught hold of himself and resumed pursuit, his quarry now possessing a fifty-foot head start. Malone had not seen the knife during their struggle, but as he plowed up the street between shops he saw that the man still grasped the leather bag. His chest burned, but he was closing the gap.
Red Jacket wrenched a flower cart away from a scraggly old man, one of many carts that lined both Højbro Plads and Købmagergade. Malone hated the vendors, who enjoyed blocking his bookshop, especially on Saturdays. Red Jacket flung the cart down the cobbles in Malone’s direction. He could not let the cart run free—too many people on the street, including children—so he darted right, grasped hold, and twisted it to a stop.
He glanced back and saw Stephanie round the corner onto Købmagergade, along with a policeman. They were half a football field away, and he had no time to wait.
Malone dashed ahead, wondering where the man was heading. Perhaps he’d left a vehicle, or a driver was waiting where Købmagergade emptied into another of Copenhagen’s busy squares, Hauser Plads. He hoped not. That place was a nightmare of congestion, beyond the web of people-only lanes that formed the shoppers’ mecca known as Strøget. His thighs ached from the unexpected workout, the muscles barely recalling his days with the Navy and the Justice Department. After a year of voluntary retirement, his exercise regimen would not impress his former employer.
Ahead loomed the Round Tower, nestled firmly against the Trinity Church like a thermos bound to a lunch pail. The burly cylindrical structure rose nine stories. Denmark’s Christian IV had erected it in 1642, and the symbol of his reign—a gilded 4 embraced by a c— glistened on its somber brick edifice. Five streets intersected where the Round Tower stood, and Red Jacket could choose any one of them for his escape.
Police cars appeared.
One screeched to a stop on the south side of the Round Tower. Another came from farther down Købmagergade, blocking any escape to the north. Red Jacket was now contained in the plaza that encircled the Round Tower. His quarry hesitated, seeming to appraise the situation, then scampered right and disappeared inside the Round Tower.
What was the fool doing? There was no way out besides the ground-floor portal. But maybe Red Jacket didn’t know that.
Malone ran to the entrance. He knew the man in the ticket booth. The Norwegian spent many hours in Malone’s bookshop, English literature his passion.
“Arne, where did that man go?” he asked in Danish, catching his wind.
“Ran right by without paying.”
“Anybody up there?”
“An older couple went up a little while ago.”
No elevator or stairs led to the top. Instead, a spiral causeway wound a path straight to the summit, originally installed so that bulky seventeenth-century astronomical instruments could be wheeled up. The story local tour guides liked to tell was of how Russia’s Peter the Great once rode up on horseback while his empress followed in a carriage.
Malone could hear footfalls echoing from the flooring above. He shook his head at what he knew awaited him. “Tell the police we’re up there.”
He started to run.
Halfway up the spiraling incline he passed a door leading into the Large Hall. The glassed entrance was locked, the lights off. Ornamented double windows lined the tower’s outer walls, but each was iron-barred. He listened again and could still hear running from above.
He continued ahead, his breathing growing thick and hampered. He slowed his pace when he passed a medieval planet plotter affixed high on the wall. He knew the exit onto the roof platform was just a few feet away, around the ramp’s final bend.
He heard no more footsteps.
He crept forward and stepped through the archway. An octago- nal observatory—not from Christian IV’s time, but a more recent incarnation—rose in the center, with a wide terrace encircling.
To his left a decorative iron fence surrounded the observatory, its only entrance chained shut. On his right, intricate wrought-iron latticework lined the tower’s outer edge. Beyond the low railing loomed the city’s red-tiled rooftops and green spires.
He rounded the platform and found an elderly man lying prone. Behind the body, Red Jacket stood with a knife to an older woman’s throat, his arm encasing her chest. She seemed to want to scream, but fear quelled her voice.
“Keep still,” Malone said to her in Danish.
He studied Red Jacket. The haunted look was still there in the dark, almost mournful eyes. Beads of sweat glistened in the bright sun. Everything signaled that Malone should not step any closer. Footfalls from below signaled that the police would arrive in a few moments.
“How about you cool down?” he asked, trying English.
He could see the man understood him, but the knife stayed in place. Red Jacket’s gaze kept darting away, off to the sky then back. He seemed unsure of himself and that concerned Malone even more. Desperate people always did desperate things.
“Put the knife down. The police are coming. There’s no way out.”
Red Jacket looked to the sky again, then refocused on Malone. Indecision stared back at him. What was this? A purse snatcher who flees to the top of a hundred-foot tower with nowhere to go?
Footfalls from below grew louder.
“The police are here.”
Red Jacket backed closer to the iron railing but kept his grip tight on the elderly woman. Malone sensed the steeliness of an ultimatum forcing some choice, so he made clear again, “There’s no way out.”
Red Jacket tightened his grip on the woman’s chest, then he staggered back, now firmly against the waist-high outer railing, nothing beyond him and his hostage but air.
The eyes lost their panic and a sudden calm swept over the man. He shoved the old woman forward and Malone caught her before she lost her balance. Red Jacket made the sign of the cross and, with Stephanie’s bag in hand, pivoted out over the railing, screamed one word—“beauseant”—then slashed the knife across his throat... --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
'A major twist midway through the story ... the puzzles are so much fun ... radical thinking of the Gospels that's sure to spark some lively debate ... pretty grabby stuff' -- Wall Street Journal 'Not to be missed. Anagrams and complicated symbology abound, and comparisons to The Da Vinci Code are inevitable, but Berry distinguishes himself with a complex, well-written, and extremely readable story.' -- Library Journal 'Writes with the self-assured style of a veteran' -- Dan Brown on Steve Berry 'Steve Berry is a writer on the rise.' -- David Morrell, author of NIGHTSCAPE and CREEPERS 'Conspiracies and plots abound ... Berry handles his thriller tradecraft skilfully, [and] his descriptions are stellar.' -- Booklist on THE THIRD SECRET 'Sexy, illuminating ... my kind of thriller.' -- Dan Brown on THE AMBER ROOM 'International intrigue, swashbuckling action, indestructible hero from the American South... Not to be missed.' -- Kirkus Reviews, on THE ROMANOV PROPHECY 'Pure intrigue. Pure fun.' -- Clive Cussler on Steve Berry 'Pacy, action packed and intriguing' -- Adelaide Advertiser 'Steve Berry has a knack for tackling historical mysteries...Fabulous!' -- Woman's Day, Australia 'A seamless blend of fact and fiction...a first-class thriller...gripping...enlightening' -- Waikato Times, NZ 20060506 --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. 
![The Templar Legacy: A Novel (Cotton Malone Book 1) by [Steve Berry]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51gUv03VhbL._SY346_.jpg)
A man can accomplish much when the woman he loves supports him, even if she believes that what he does is foolishness.Highlighted by 239 Kindle readers
