The Templars exploded onto the public conciousness with Dan Brown's THE DA VINCI CODE, now journey with Paul Doherty to 1095 and experience the founding of the Templar Order in all its epic and brutal detail. 1095 and crusading fervour has swept Europe. Christ's fief of Jerusalem has been seized by the Infidels. The Frankish Knights of the West are to march east to liberate the Holy City. Hugh de Payens and Godefroi of St Omer, the soon-to-be founders of the Templar Order, and Hugh's younger sister, Eleanor, leave the security of their homes in Burgundy, France, with a plan to join Count Raymond of Toulouse's army, and march across the known world to Jerusalem. Follow the crusaders as they march through Europe into the glories of Byzantium and onto Syria. Witness the hardships, bloodshed and trickery on their treacherous travels to the Holy Land and know that though the crusaders' journey, and this novel, will end with their entry into the Holy City, the Crusades have yet to begin in earnest.From Publishers WeeklyMaster of the historical mystery, Doherty (The Spies of Sobeck) tries his hand at a straight historical in this less than impressive first in a new series set during the crusader era. In 1095, Pope Urban II's call to arms leads to the First Crusade. The action starts in 1096 with the initial mustering of forces to march on Jerusalem to liberate it from the Turks and ends in 1099 with the fall of Jerusalem to the crusaders. A man known as the Magus, who's responsible for a number of deaths, adds a minor mystery element. Focusing more on wartime brutalities than on char-acter development, Doherty fails to bring the past alive with his usual flair. His real-life main characters, French knights Hugh de Payens and Godefroi of St. Omer, the future founders of the Templar Order, engage the reader less than the leads in other of his series such as Hugh Corbett or Brother Athelsan. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From BooklistIn the first in a new historical-mystery series, Doherty explores the founding of the Knights Templar. With the exact origins of the sect unknown, Doherty is free to speculate, and he comes up with a plausible story about the men and women who went on the First Crusade and founded the Templars. After the call of Pope Urban in 1095, Eleanor, her brother Hugh, and his best friend Godefroi set off on the five-year crusade, during which they endure intense heat, dust, and winter rains. The mystery element here—Is foul play dogging the footsteps of the crusaders from the outset (one of their company is found dead even before they leave France)?—is overwhelmed by the historical detail and, in the end, is a little too easily resolved. Still, the story of the crusade and the taking of Jerusalem is compelling in itself, and Doherty’s take on the Templars is sure to interest those who have an insatiable fascination with the controversial group. --Jessica Moyer

Summer, 1379. Sir John Cranston, coroner of the city of London, is trapped into a wager with Signor Gian Galeazzo, Lord of Cremona, when challenged to resolve a certain murder mystery within two weeks. Men have been found dead in the scarlet chamber of one of Cremona’s manors. They have no mark upon them; they have neither drunk nor eaten poison; there are no secret passageways or entrances to the room. And they all have an awful expression of terror upon their faces. Realising his reputation and future wealth rest upon the solving of this mystery, Cranston seeks the help of his faithful secretarius, Brother Athelstan.

In the summer of 1523, the weather has turned hot and the sweating sickness has returned to London to provide a fertile breeding ground for terrible murders and the most treasonable conspiracies. King Henry VIII has moved the court to Windsor, where he slakes his lusts while the kingdom is being governed by his first minister, Cardinal Thomas Wolsey. Wolsey, however, is not having an easy time. Someone is sending the king threatening letters from the tower, despatched under the name and seal of Edward, one of the princes supposedly murdered there, and demanding that great amounts of gold be left in different parts of London. If the orders are not carried out, proclamations will be published throughout the capital which, coinciding with the outbreak of plague, may make it look as though the hand of God has turned against the Tudors for usurping the throne. Henry VIII is truly terrified - and also intrigued by the mysterious and grisly murders occurring among the hangmen of London, whose guild also happens to meet in the tower. Wolsey has only two people to turn to: his beloved nephew, Benjamin Daunbey, and Daunbey's faithful servant, Roger Shallot, who reluctantly agree to go to London to unmask the blackmailer and end the macabre murders among the hangmen. Benjamin and Roger first meet with disaster in the murky Tudor underworld. They also become immersed in the ghastly world of the Gallowsmen, the royal executioners, many of whom are dying the same hideous deaths that they have meted out to others. And at the same time they must confront the mystery of the princes of the tower - an ancient murder that still haunts the English throne. When King Henry threatens that Shallot will hang from the highest scaffold in the kingdom unless the mysteries are resolved, the pressure mounts for Benjamin and Roger to find the answers - whether they be in London's foul alleyways or among the gorgeous splendor of the Tudor court.

In chess, from the time of Queen Isabella of England, the queen has been considered the most powerful and feared piece on the board. Known to chroniclers as the 'she-wolf', Isabella, daughter of Philip IV of France, married King Edward II of England in 1308 in a union intended to create a lasting peace between the two countries. But after 13 years of enduring her husband's unkind and dissolute nature she fled abroad. With her lover, the exiled Roger Mortimer, she raised an army of mercenaries and invaded England, successfully deposing Edward. Popular belief holds that Edward was murdered in an infamous manner at Berkeley Castle near Gloucester, at the order of his wife and her lover. But after Mortimer's execution a letter arrived at court that cast doubt over Edward's death and raised the possibility of his escape. The evidence remains controversial to this day, and here Paul Doherty examines it in his fascinating detective study, set in one of the most turbulent and exciting...

In 1523, Benjamin Daunbey and Roger Shallot are summoned to London. A Florentine envoy has been murdered and King Henry is determined to unmask the perpetrators. To discover the identity of the assassin they must travel to Florence - it sounds simple but the reality is murderously different