The elusive Crusader Gold: the greatest prize missing from the final bloody conflict of the Crusades. For many it is the Jewish menorah, the huge golden candlestick looted by the Romans in AD70 when they sacked the Temple in Jerusalem and marched through Rome in triumph. It was carried off to Constantinople. Now, nobody knows where it is. Some Jewish activists today think it survived and is concealed in the Vatican. Some think it took another altogether more extraordinary turn, at the beginning of history itself ...Jack Howard is the only man who can find out. But the clock is ticking against him. Will ancient history give up one of its darkest secrets? The quest to find out takes him from the fall of the Roman Empire to the last days of Nazi power - and uncovers a trail more thrilling than anyone could have imagined.
Although it could have done with some harsh editing, this isn't a bad read, lagging in places when the author felt a need to pass on some of the historical facts to the audience so almost losing my interest a few times by the end though it had me firmly gripped by the story and I really did want to know if some of the characters survived.
Better written in many ways than the Da Vinci Code and there's a blurb from the Mirror that suggests crossing Indiana Jones with the Da Vinci Code and getting this book. It spans the Atlantic going from Iona to Greenland to Canada to Mexico to Instanbul to Rome and sometimes the galloping pace almost left me behind. Still a good thriller.
Reading updates
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Started reading
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17 May, 2007:
Finished reading
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17 May, 2007:
Reviewed