Templar

Series · 5 books · 2005-2014

By Raymond Khoury

Books in series

The Last Templar

2005

"It has served us well, this myth of Christ." Pope Leo X, 16th Century In a hail of fire and flashing sword, as the burning city of Acre falls from the hands of the West in 1291, The Last Templar opens with a young Templar knight, his mentor, and a handful of others escaping to the sea carrying a mysterious chest entrusted to them by the Order's dying Grand Master. The ship vanishes without a trace. In present day Manhattan, four masked horsemen dressed as Templar Knights emerge from Central Park and ride up the Fifth Avenue steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art during the blacktie opening of a Treasures of the Vatican exhibit. Storming through the crowds, the horsemen brutally attack anyone standing between them and their prize. Attending the gala, archaeologist Tess Chaykin watches in silent terror as the leader of the horsemen hones in on one piece in particular, a strange geared device. He utters a few cryptic Latin words as he takes hold of it with reverence before leading the horsemen out and disappearing into the night. In the aftermath, an FBI investigation is led by anti-terrorist specialist Sean Reilly. Soon, he and Tess are drawn into the dark, hidden history of the crusading Knights, plunging them into a deadly game of cat and mouse with ruthless killers as they race across three continents to recover the lost secret of the Templars.

The Templar Salvation

2010

At last, the book more than a million fans are waiting for: the sequel to The Last Templar. With its iconic title and unmistakable cover, Raymond Khoury's million-copy- selling The Last Templar remains one of the most memorable thriller publications of the last decade. Finally, after four long years, Khoury returns to the world of the Templars with The Templar Salvation, a sequel that's every bit as eye-popping and as gripping as its predecessor. Constantinople, 1203: As the rapacious armies of the Fourth Crusade lay siege to the city, a secretive band of Templars infiltrate the imperial library. Their target: a cache of documents that must not be allowed to fall into the hands of the Doge of Venice. They escape with three heavy chests, filled with explosive secrets that these men will not live long enough to learn. Vatican City, present day: FBI agent Sean Reilly infiltrates the Pope's massive Vatican Secret Archives of the Inquisition. No one but the Pope's trusted secondi get in-but Reilly has earned the Vatican's trust, a trust he has no choice but to violate. His love, Tess Chaykin, has been kidnapped; the key to her freedom lays in this underground tomb, in the form of a document known as the Fondo Templari, a secret history of the infamous Templars... With his trademark blend of incendiary history and edge-of-your-seat suspense, Raymond Khoury's The Templar Salvation marks a triumphant return to the rich territory that launched his bestselling career.

The Devil's Elixir

2011

FBI agent Sean Reilly and his girlfriend, archaeologist Tess Chaykin, heroes of Raymond Khoury's bestselling Templar novels, return in another edge-of-your-seat thriller that reaches from present day back to 1700s Mexico-and possibly beyond. What if there was a drug, previously lost to history in the jungles of Central America, capable of inducing an experience so momentous-and so unsettling-that it might shake the very foundations of Western civilization? What if powerful forces on both sides of the law got wind of that drug and launched a vicious, uncompromising pursuit to possess it? In Raymond Khoury's million-copy-selling Templar novels, Reilly and Tess traveled the globe to unravel ancient mysteries with present-day ramifications. In The Devil's Elixir, they find themselves dragged into a race-against the clock, against a brutal drug kingpin known as "El Brujo"-the sorcerer-and even against government authorities-to merge two divergent trails, one several hundred years old, the other as current as a heartbeat, that could drag humanity to the brink of self- destruction. Packed with the nonstop suspense and unexpected twists Raymond Khoury fans delight in, The Devil's Elixir is destined for bestseller lists everywhere.

Rasputin's Shadow

2013

An ingenious, fast-paced historical thriller from the author of the New York Times bestseller The Last Templar On a cold, bleak day in 1916, all hell breaks loose in a mining pit in the Ural Mountains. Overcome by a strange paranoia, the miners attack one another, savagely and ferociously. Minutes later, two men—a horrified scientist and Grigory Rasputin, trusted confidant of the tsar—hit a detonator, blowing up the mine to conceal all evidence of the carnage. In the present day, FBI agent Sean Reilly’s search for Reed Corrigan, the CIA mindcontrol spook who brainwashed Reilly’s son, takes a backseat to a new, disturbing case. A Russian embassy attaché seems to have committed suicide by jumping out of a fourth-floor window in Queens. The apartment’s owners, a retired physics teacher from Russia and his wife, have gone missing, and further investigation reveals that the former may not be who the FBI believe him to be. Joined by Russian Federal Security Service agent Larisa Tchoumitcheva, Reilly’s investigation of the old man’s identity will uncover a desperate search for a small, mysterious device, with consequences that reach back in time and which, in the wrong hands, could have a devastating impact on the modern world. Packed with the twists, intrigue, and excitement that Khoury’s many fans have come to expect, Rasputin’s Shadow will keep readers turning pages long into the night.

The End Game

2014

While tracking down the men behind a DarkNet marketplace where everything, even murder, is available for barter, FBI Special Agent Sean Reilly crosses paths with a man who claims to know the truth about the death of Reilly’s father, back when Reilly was ten. A death that had been considered a suicide—until now. In chasing after the potentially devastating revelations about that hidden past, Reilly awakens other dormant monsters—a cabal of assassins whose unusual methods have escaped detection for decades, whose victims have spanned continents, and whose leaders would rather remain hidden in the shadows. At any cost. Watched, manipulated, and framed for crimes he didn't commit, Reilly becomes a fugitive, making it next to impossible for him to uncover the truth while protecting his family. He's left with no choice but to risk everything to unearth secrets that would shake the country to its core—if he were ever allowed to get that far. Read THE END GAME and dive into Reilly’s most personal—and most dangerous—story yet.

Author

Raymond Khoury

Author · 14 books

Raymond Khoury is the author of five consecutive New York Times and #1 international bestsellers, starting with his debut novel, THE LAST TEMPLAR. His books have been translated into 38 languages, with over 10 million copies in print. Raymond came to writing thrillers from a career in screenwriting, which including the BAFTA award winning BBC series SPOOKS (aka MI:5 in the US) and Waking The Dead. It partly explains why his novels are often described as cinematic and very visual. As fellow bestselling author Steve Berry puts it: "his expertly chosen verbs cause the scenes to leap from the page. You can literally feel the blows as they're landed; wince as the bullets find their marks. He has an intense brand of storytelling all his own." THE LAST TEMPLAR began its journey to print as Raymond's third original screenplay, written for film in 1996. At the time, a book agent suggested turning it into a novel, and a major NY publisher, the first to read it, offered Raymond a huge advance for the as-yet-unwritten novel, with one condition: "Lose the religion. It's boring. Change the Templars' secret to gold, diamonds, a physical treasure." After much tortured consideration, Raymond turned the offer down, his first potential check from writing. Almost exactly ten years later, his novel, based on that screenplay—religion included—became a global bestseller, hitting #1 in multiple countries and getting adapted into an NBC miniseries. Raymond's thrillers are based on big themes that interest him such as international politics and conspiracies, fact vs faith, why we age and die, what do we really know about reincarnation, about mind control. He explores these themes in depth, with heavy emphasis on research, and often combines a historical angle to his stories. As such, some of his novels (THE LAST TEMPLAR, THE SANCTUARY, THE TEMPLAR SALVATION, RASPUTIN'S SHADOW) feature dual timelines: the bulk of the stories are set in the present day, interspersed with chapters that take place in the distant past. As Booklist puts it, "Khoury's thrillers engage the reader's mind, even as they move at a breakneck pace. Readers who like their thrillers to have a solid intellectual component will enjoy Khoury's books very much. Given the high quality of each of his novels, it seems fair to say that he may be around for a while." Raymond's 8th novel is an epic alternate history and time travel story that Publishers Weekly called "ingeniously inventive" and "a classic of the genre": It is already out in the UK as THE OTTOMAN SECRET, and is out on Oct 1 in the US under a different title, EMPIRE OF LIES. To find out more about him and his work, visit his website at raymondkhoury.com or connect with him on his Facebook page or on Instagram (@author.raymond.khoury).