The Last Templar

The Last Templar is a 2005 novel by Raymond Khoury, and also is his debut work. The novel topped the New York Times Bestseller list for 22 months.

In ad 1291, following the fall of Acre, Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem to the Saracens, a small party of Knights Templar leave the city with a small chest. Their ship, the Falcon Temple, is damaged in a storm at sea and sinks. One of the Knights is mortally wounded in the event; he dies on land after hiding a small leather pouch under a gravestone. He charges the remainder of the ship's company to deliver an encoded letter to the Head of the Templars.

The last surviving Knight reaches Paris in 1314, just in time to see the Grand Master being burned at the stake after refusing to reveal the location of the Templars' treasure. The last Knight commits himself to maintaining the legend of the Templars' threat to the Catholic Church.