The Last Templar
Raymond Khoury
Move over Dan Brown? Well, not quite. Not only does The Last Templar follow hot on the heels of the basic ideals and style of The Da Vinci Code, there are unusual plot similarities. Raymond Khoury’s novel also begins with murder at a museum, although this one is a more daring raid on the Met in New York. A man and wife are reluctantly paired together on a hunt for a thousand-year-old secret jealously guarded by the Templar knights. A decoder is involved, and naturally, so are sinister figures from the church. Still, if you can keep the “been-there-done-that” feeling at bay, we’re far enough removed from Dan Brown’s epic to make this an enjoyable, if not spectacular, read. Click on the image to buy now!
 

Suite Française
Irène Némirovsky
In 1918, author Irène Némirovsky escaped the Russian Revolution for France. She was in Paris in 1940, when the Germans came, and she and her family fled to the village of Issy-l’Evêque. Here, she began writing the two books that would make up Suite Française. Némirovsky would never complete the three-part work; she died in Auschwitz in 1942. But the manuscript she left behind has been molded and translated into a haunting, epic work that is tragic, beautiful, comic at times, and so very human. This is an unforgettable read that follows two narrative threads: a group’s flight from the Nazis in Paris, and the experiences of a small village under German occupation. Click on the image to buy now!