The Last Templar, by Raymond Khoury

Summary: The story opens with a robbery at the Met by a group of horsemen who steal a variety of objects. The FBI is called in to investigate because many (all?) of the items taken were on loan from the Vatican. The book follows the subsequent unveiling of what happened and why, including many potentially deadly situations for many of the characters. It's kinda like The Da Vinci Code only more dangerous (much higher body count).

I'm not sure how much of the story I can comment on without spoilers, so I'm hiding the rest of my comments.  Be warned: I'm pretty much dropping events left and right, so if you haven't read the book it might not make sense, and if you want to read the book there won't be much surprise left if you read my comment, and I think the surprise is one of the best parts. I will say one thing, though. Quite possibly the best part of the book is the characters and how they interact and struggle with moral dilemmas (or don't). I'm not sure how to explain what I like about it. Possibly the fact that I'm pretty sure you couldn't come up with a mold that it fits into without an awful lot of work (and possibly a custom-made mold).

Reaction: The biggest thing for me to react to is, of course, the journal written by Jesus. Or so people say. No one bothers to actually translate it or authenticate it because it ends up in the sea. The consensus seems to be that its revelation of Jesus as only human would destroy the Church. Which is true. Or at least it would destroy the Church as we know it. Maybe there would be hope for a reform as followers of "Jesus, this really swell guy and great teacher" rather than "Jesus, the Son of God". Which of course prompts questions about whether there's any truth to the matter and, if so, if there's a way to prove anything. Of course this book also adds fuel to my ongoing debate over what exactly is my view with regards to religion.

Characters: This book does a really good job of not dividing things into good guys and bad guys. It's more based around differences in opinion. Although I suppose the people who are responsible for killing off other people count as bad guys. Even if they are on opposite sides of the conflict.

The main characters are...

• Tess, an archeologist who is, as is common in these books, very pretty. She's only involved because she was there when the robbery took place and with the help of a friend comes up with an unexplected, though ultimately correct, theory about who's responsible, then accidentally meets up with...
• Vance, another archeologist type who becomes somewhat ...unhinged, shall we say...following the death of his wife and unborn daughter. His wife likely would have lived had his local priest not told them not ot have an abortion even though she would almost certainly die if she didn't. He blames the Church for their deaths. While wandering Europe, he finds out about the secret hidden by the Templar Knights and decides to try to find it. The robbery was to get the decoder necessary to read the documents that he found.
• De Angelis, a priest closely connected with the Vatican who is aware of the significance of the decoder that was stolen and tries to direct the FBI investigation in ways that will prevent the secret from becoming public. This includes murdering the other three horsemen/thieves. He's willing to kill anyone and everyone he has to to keep the secret safely hidden.
• Reilly, an FBI agent assigned to the case. He falls in love with Tess (and she with him) and follows her when she goes to find the treasure on her own.

I think the best part of the book is the characters. They're all living by their own convinctions and the distinction between good and bad is fairly murky. This is probably bes illustrated by the fact that Tess abandoned her new FBI friend to go off with a man who is/was/would be arrested for robbery (and possibly murder, although I'm not sure he was directly responsible for anyone's death at that point) because Mr. FBI agent was opposed to her idea of searching for the "buried treasure". The FBI agent then get picked up by the guy who had been snipering at them the day before and who was already responsible for several deaths, although I'm not sure Reilly knew that at the time. Of course then two of the characters, one on each side, are overcome with desire for their quest to succeed to the point of not caring about the impending storm, so they start threatening anyone who shows any concern for people's well-being.