The Last Templar

I found it ironic reading this story, which is very much about a Templar and the Templars, that the series should have been renamed for this new printing "A Medieval West Country Mystery" rather that "A Knights Templar Mystery" as all the series were originally. Ironic because I have been one of those complaining that they are not Knights Templar mysteries. But I had never read the first few books in the series. Now, wanting to see how it all started, I was astonished first of all to find that the hero, who is also the viewpoint character for 90% of the book, is Simon Puttock the Bailiff. In fact it is at the beginning of this story that he is first appointed Bailiff and thereby given some of the responsibility for maintaining law and order in his area.

Sir Baldwin Furnshill, newly arrived from Outremer to claim his inheritance after the death of his elder brother, plays a very small part. If you are new to these books, you may be wondering why I am so struck by this. The fact is that, as I observed a couple of years ago in a review of .................. , Sir Baldwin and Simon fit the Holmes and Watson stereotype almost perfectly, and I assumed it had been planned that way, but no, it seems to have developed as the books went on. I find that very impressive and I am going to continue my reading of the earliest books in the series to see exactly how it came about. (The Merchant's Partner next month.) I have just noticed that on the back of this book it actually says – I quote – "Bailiff Simon Puttock will return soon in The Merchant's Partner also from Headline." This is really astonishing.

But did I like the story? I have to say that another of my reasons for reading it was that there has been some serious disagreement here about these books, and I realised that to get to the truth of the matter we needed to go back to the beginning. As MBG observes in his review of Six For Gold this month, there are some series where the individual volumes do not stand alone: the publishers may say they do, the authors may believe they do, but, unless you are au fait with the on-going soap opera, half the time you will miss the point. There are constant allusions to the past; the past is the matrix in which the present story takes place.

Only in the first book of any series is this not at least to certain extent true.

Simon Puttock's family has for generations served the de Courtenays, who seem to own large parts of Devon. Simon himself, whose wife and six-year-old daughter we are introduced to – the young wife worried about his safety each time he goes away, the daughter feeling she is not getting the attention she deserves from her father – Simon himself has no sooner been made Bailiff than a suspicious death occurs in his area: a man's house burns down around him, but it seems he was already dead before the fire broke out. This is followed by the rather more horrifying death of an abbot from France who is passing through with a party of monks on his way to Buckland Abbey. Then yet more deaths occur as a band of outlaws start raiding outlying farms and hamlets. Is there any connection between all these deaths? And why do they all start happening as soon as poor Simon takes up his post, in an area where previously no murders had taken place in living memory?

And Sir Baldwin? Yes, we meet him in the Prologue, when he witnesses Jacques de Molay, Grand Master of the Order of Knights Templar. publicly, outside Notre Dame in the heart of Paris, retract the confession forced out of him by torture – and as a result he and all the remaining Templars in captivity are burnt at the stake. However, not all were seized. Sir Baldwin is one, and he leaves Paris, his heart broken, swearing vengeance on the evil men within the Church and the French Government who were responsible for this abomination.

Two years later he turns up in Devon, where he meets and become friends with Simon Puttock. But plays no real part in Simon's investigations. On the contrary, Simon's assistant all though is the local hunter, John Black.

What can I say? It is excellent. If I had read this when it first came out in 1995, and before reading any of the others, I would certainly have been waiting impatiently to read the second story. As I am now, in 2008, despite having read all of the later ones!

If you haven't done so, read it. Start again from the beginning – and be thankful the whole series has been reissued!