As I started to read I realised this was the first book in
the series written by this author. The main character Caedmon Asquith is being
introduced in this book. The story begins in America where a former black ops soldier,
Finn is now working a desk job. He gets visited by CID officers who are making inquiries
about the murders of his old team mates who were tortured and killed. The
weapon found was his combat knife. While being interviewed in his office he
gets a text message telling him to go to the French Embassy party and await a
meeting which could clear him off the potential murder charge. He has no choice
but to evade the officers and rush out to keep this appointment. He wants to
find out and avenge the murder of his friends and teams mates.
Since he cannot take his car he gets into a car which
stopped to drop someone. This is a young lady, Kate, he has seen around the
department and feels he should be able to get a lift. In fact he invites her to
go with him to the French Embassy party in return for the lift. The man he
meets there tells him he wants the artefact that Finn took from Afghanistan on
his last black ops mission. In return they would provide him with the proof
that he was innocent of the murders and be handsomely paid for the artefact.
What is the artefact and why is it so important? Who are the people behind this
Frenchman willing to go to such lengths to get their hands on this particular artefact?
But before Finn can get any useful information, except that the Dark Angel
killed his friends, out of the Frenchman, he commits suicide. At the same time,
Kate who had followed him walks in and thinks Finn has something to do with the
death.
They run from the embassy and Kate insists she is going home
and keep out of whatever is going on with Finn. But it seems that someone is bent
on silencing her and uses this threat to get the artefact from Finn. The
information they get from pinching the Frenchman’s laptop send them surreptitiously
racing to France. The artefact has some symbols on it and Kate suggests that
they go see an old friend Caedmon Asquith for a translation. It seems this
artefact is an important map to unearth a grail stone from the Knights Templars’
treasure. It is hold the key to the lost science of the ancient Egyptians.
There is a lot of historical information regarding the Knights Templars and
their fascination with the Egyptian science. It can get very intense and trifle
dry reading this history. It is very tempting to skim through it rather than
concentrate on the details; however, the detail is necessary to understand the importance
of the artefact and what the so called treasure is about. The people after it
are attempting to harness the powers of the lost science to change the world as
we know it. Yes, it did seem fanciful but not entirely impossible when the
final details of what they intend to do are revealed.
The assassin is now after all three and to this end kidnap Kate.
Finn is very disheartened and offers to give the artefact in return for Kate…but
now it appears they are not willing to negotiate. How are the two men going to
save Kate? How are they going to stop the potential from happening? Will
Caedmon manage to keep it together without the regular gin and tonics that he
has been consuming? They do not have any weapons to help them. The team of
Caedmon and Finn appears to be a good one as Finn’s strength is his skills of
fighting and Caedmon’s strength is knowledge. Some may consider the plot to be
very farfetched but the story moves well and the action is more or less
constant. A thought comes to mind that how come in movies and books the main
character manages the feat, be it finding an artefact hidden for centuries or a
murderer from a cold case, with such ease? It was an enjoyable read and I am
eager to read the third book of the series. I will see if I can find any more
books by this author.
