The Templar Throne

In the third installment (after 2010’s The Templar Cross) of this bestselling international thriller series, John “Doc” Holliday, an army ranger turned medieval historian, teams up with Sister Meg, a beautiful nun, to find a sacred relic. In a plot driven entirely by increasing danger to the protagonists, Doc and Sister Meg dodge spies from the Vatican, the U.S. government, and an ancient brotherhood known as Rex Deus as they trot about Europe researching the life story of a 14th-century Templar for hints to the relic’s whereabouts. Repeated jibes at “that silly Da Vinci book” do little to mask how much this story resembles it, but Brown’s readers will be just as happy with Christopher’s compilation of gunfights, narrow escapes, beautiful vistas, conspiracy theories, and intriguing clues in ancient art and architecture. (June)