{"id":8189,"date":"2019-09-25T08:50:29","date_gmt":"2019-09-25T12:50:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=8189"},"modified":"2019-09-25T09:41:01","modified_gmt":"2019-09-25T13:41:01","slug":"lever-templar-a-castellum-one-novel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=8189","title":{"rendered":"Lever Templar: A Castellum One Novel"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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By Matt Gianni \u2013 The Knights Templar, a Catholic military\norder that distinguished itself during the Crusades, existed for less than two\nhundred years. But it has been a treasure trove of secrets and mysteries, real\nand imagined, ever since. When this thriller begins in 1307, the Holy Land has\nalready been lost, and the Templars are under siege. One thing has preserved\nthem through the era\u2019s political vicissitudes\u2014the Lever Templar\u2014a scroll that\nwould \u201credefine Christianity.\u201d What and where is it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the opening scenes, Knight Malcolm of Basingstoke and his\nsergeant Brimley Hastings break into the Templar\u2019s Preceptory south of London to\nsteal an ancient leather pouch. Only later does Brim, who becomes the hero of\nthe piece, learn the pouch contains the Lever Templar. Malcolm and Brim escape to\nCyprus, where the Templars maintain a tenuous presence. There they reconnect\nwith old friends, including a young woman who becomes Brim\u2019s love interest,\nwhile violent opposing forces scour the island for the missing scroll. And so Brim\u2019s\nquest to safeguard the Lever Templar begins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In current-day Mosul, Iraq, American Rick Lambert works for the Iraqi Interior Ministry\u2019s Investigations Unit, trying to solve a rash of Christian priest abductions. He partially foils the latest attempt, during which a dying priest hands him an ancient domino, saying, \u201cprotect Cyprus.\u201d Vatican emissaries are sent to bird-dog Lambert (that is, to make sure anything he finds that\u2019s important ends up back in Rome). The Farsi-speaking terrorists targeting Christian churches know about the scroll and believe it will destroy Christianity. And so the modern-day race to find the scroll commences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a rip-roaring adventure told in chapters alternating\nbetween ancient and current times and with lots of characters. Gianni does what\nI wish more authors would do to help you keep it straight: maps of the\nprincipal locations are especially helpful, because he\u2019s not generous with place\ndescriptions; ditto his list of characters, real and fictional. He\u2019s done a\ncreditable job in portraying life seven centuries ago in a believable way. I\nloved the detail of how they used carrier pigeons to deliver messages across\nlong distances! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gianni\u2019s writing style is clear and has strong forward\nmomentum. With more delving into his characters\u2019 feelings, he might encourage a\ngreater emotional connection with them, but if people are best known by their\ndeeds, those are certainly on view here. He makes a half-hearted attempt to\ngive Lambert a character flaw\u2014excess drinking after his terrible Army\nexperiences in Fallujah (left to your imagination)\u2014but it isn\u2019t convincing,\nnever gets in Lambert\u2019s way, and has been done too many times.\n\nIf you\u2019re a fan of the Indiana Jones franchise\nor appreciate the speculations of Dan Brown and others, you\u2019ll find this an\nexciting companion.\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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By Matt Gianni \u2013 The Knights Templar, a Catholic military order that distinguished itself during the Crusades, existed for less than two hundred years. But it has been a treasure trove of secrets and mysteries, real and imagined, ever since. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8190,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Lever Templar: A Castellum One Novel - lots of action in this quest for a religious artifact. Shades of Dan Brown and Indiana Jones.","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[440,266,126,32],"tags":[1648,1349],"class_list":["post-8189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-adventure","category-history","category-reading-2","category-thriller","tag-matt-gianni","tag-religion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vweisfeld.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/Knights-templar.jpg?fit=358%2C420&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-285","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8189"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8189\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8192,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8189\/revisions\/8192"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}