I went to B&N this weekend with my mother which inevitably leads lots of wonderful book buying! As mysteries are a personal favorite of hers, I found myself in that aisle as well. I do enjoy a good mystery but I tend not to look specifically for them. I also enjoy historical novels, and it looks like I'll get the best of both worlds with this one!

'The Last Templar' is the first in the Knights Templar series.

Review: The Last Templar (Knights Templar #1) Michael Jecks. My daughter passed this on to me...in 2010! Needless to say, I have a lot of waiting books... I enjoyed this mystery set in 14th century France. I have read a lot about the purging of the Templars via my French history background, so the opening scene in front of Notre Dame Cathedral which kicks off this series make sense to me. This brotherhood of warrior monks was originally under the auspices of the Pope, but during the schism in the 14th century, they were all but destroyed, out of greed and hopes of acquiring their fabled fortunes. One of the main characters of this book and the series is Sir Baldwin Furnshill, who managed to escape the destruction of his order and fellow Templars and has made his way back to England where his elder brother has died, leaving him property and a new life in which his past needs to remain hidden. He meets and becomes close to Simon Puttock who who just been named bailiff of Lydford Castle. Then there are a series of murders... first in a small village of a man disliked by just about everybody, then the gruesome murder in a nearby forest of a travelling abbot, then multiple murders and rape of travelers on the road by highwaymen. Are they all perpetrated by the same band? What secrets are being held and by whom? A great evocation of medieval England (at least a small section of it!) and good characters made for an entertaining read.

on the bench near the entrances