The Last Templar: Amazon.ca: Michael Jecks, Cornelius Garrett: Books

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The Abbot's Gibbet: A Knights Templar Mystery

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Customer Reviews

11 Reviews

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
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Average Customer Review

3.1 out of 5 stars (11 customer reviews)

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2.0 out of 5 stars Not a rea mystery, not a real historical novel and a magical confession getting sleuth I want to kick!, Jan 1 2008

By	Lilly Flora "by Lilo Drandoff" (Portland, OR) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Last Templar (Mass Market Paperback)

Somehow I ended up with the eighth book in this series and never liking to start any series in the middle, I ordered the first few books. Having now read the first, I wish I had not.

"The Last Templar" is categorized as a mystery but in actuality it doesn't read like one at all. 1316 in Devon County England this seems to be a nice setting for a historical mystery- a quiet county where there isn't much crime but a lot of poverty. However there are so many problems with the plot, the premis and the characters that not only is there no mystery in the book but the other elements fall flat making reading this a bit like falling into a void.

Problem #1: the sleuth. Simon Puttock has just become bailiff of a castle. Apparently bailiff's function somewhat like sheriffs-which I didn't realize. So he is called upon to solve crimes and basically he asks bad questions and then decides that people sound like they're telling the truth and believes them. No evidence, no real sleuthing. This guy could confront a murderer- bloody knife in hand, standing over the body, and decide, based on a statement, that he "sounded like he believed what he saying was true" so he must be innocent (actually, at one point he basically does just that.) Ugh! The man would be everyone's favorite judge! Also, when the times come to solve the mystery he basically says: "Here's what happened!" and then explains the whole thing. Like a bad TV crime show. And then the villain confesses when they could have gotten off Scot free!

Problem #2: the mystery. This book has three different crimes, tied together by the use of fire in all three. A dead man in his house, who a local knight is convinced didn't die in the fire, an Abbott roasted on a stake in the woods after being captured on the road and a gang of bandits robbing and burning people on the road. To the first two crimes-there is a sight mystery but almost no evidence is gathered, nothing done to figure out. Basically he decides on the perp and they magically confess. The third crime is more of a chase to find said bandits with no clues beforehand to identity or anything because they're not from the district.

Problem #3: the setting. At the beginning of the book the magical bailiff Simon informs us there is practically no crime in the county. Yet this series goes on and on and on-so clearly there's like a massive crime boom at some point. Like all the serial killers and rapists and child molesters and burglars in England have a convention and say: "Hey! Let's move to Devon where the magical bailiff Simon Puttock will get us all to confess when he has no evidence!"

Problem #4: the whole Templar thing. It just doesn't play. So the new knight to the area was a Templar-so what? Why should I care? And I really don't think it justifies what happens with him in the book.

To sum up-not a good mystery, not good writing, the characters make me want to kick them. Unfortunately I own the next five books in the series. Maybe I'll read them, maybe not. First novels can be extraordinarily bad and subsequent ones can be ok. We'll see.

For now, two disappointed stars.

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2.0 out of 5 stars Not Very Good, Mar 9 2004

By	Susie Sharon (Orleans, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

This review is from: The Last Templar (Hardcover)

I was really looking forward to this book. I love historical novels. But this one was not very good. The writing was very ordinary. The descriptions were poor. I felt that I could have written this book! The author has an obvious knowledge of the times but it was not enough to save this book.

The main characters were not interesting; the pace was slow and tedious. The WHY? WHY? WHY? got on my nerves after a while. The vocabulary was rehashed over and over. The same words and expressions coming back.

By the end, I was reading one out of three paragraphs, trying to get to something... I got nowhere.

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5.0 out of 5 stars I loved it, Dec 13 2003