Three's company

The very mention of the Templars spell medieval intrigue, of secrets buried through the ages that might have implications even today.

The Templar Salvation
Raymond Khoury
Orion
Rs 295, PP 469

HT Image

The very mention of the Templars spell medieval intrigue, of secrets buried through the ages that might have implications even today. Raymond Khoury's The Templar Salvation is the sequel to The Last Templar. While the action begins in Constantinople in 1203 AD at a time when the Templars have fallen foul of the papacy, their secrets come back to haunt FBI agent Sean Reilly and archaeologist Tess Chaykin. A racy read that does not trip much on the history either.

Birds of the Indian Subcontinent
Ranjit Manakadan, JC Daniel, Nikhil Bhopale
BNHS/OUP
Rs 550, PP 409

It's an edition twitchers around the world have been looking forward to - for a bit more than a couple of decades. Now that it has arrived as a handy hardbound volume, the 'update' of Salim Ali and Dillon Ripley's 1983 field guide, A Pictorial Guide to the Birds of the Indian Subcontinent, it should make the flock of birders happy. The checklist of species is longer, the illustrations by John Henry Dick as precise and attractive as ever, and it gives more currency to the Indian names of some of the birds.

Warlord
James Steel
Avon
Rs 299, PP 457

The whirlpool of Central African politics, with its raging violence and unpredictability, is obviously good fodder for an action thriller. Yet, it somehow does not seem to hold true of James Steel's Warlord, where the protagonist, a hard-bitten mercenary called Alex Devereux, is up against the UN, the Congolese army and FDLR, as part of a Chinese businessman's plan to lease the Kivu region of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Too ambitious in its scope, be prepared for jump cuts all through.