The Ring

Cristina Wilson, the heroine of Molist’s subpar adventure novel, receives two rings on her 27th birthday: one an engagement solitaire from her longtime boyfriend, the other a ruby set-in-bone from her dead godfather, Enric. The arrival of Enric’s ring sets in motion a chain of events (strange dreams among them) that sends Cristina to Barcelona for the reading of Enric’s secret will. In Spain, Cristina is reunited with old flame Oriol, whom Cristina partners up with after reading a letter from Enric that tells her to “[f]ind that treasure that I couldn’t find.” Molist throws many familiar obstacles in their path as they search out the treasure: paintings with hidden clues, a crooked art dealer, a mysterious guardian, modern-day Templars, the ancient diary of a Templar monk and a hidden treasure that may be the Holy Grail are all trotted out before the mystery is solved. Though the passages describing Barcelona are well done, the narrative’s hobbled by weak prose (exclamation points are much abused), characters that act as pawns of the plot and improbable twists. There are much stronger contenders in the Templar subgenre. (May)