The Apocalypse Door

Peter Crossman is a Templar, a Knight of the Inner Temple, defending modern America against ancient evil. You thought the Templars were wiped out by Philip the Fair in the fourteenth century? No, they just went underground, and continued the good work. They now mainly handle threats to world safety of a kind that more mundane intelligence agencies can't touch. On a routine mission to find some kidnapped UN peacekeepers, a mission he expects to be mainly a training exercise for a new Temple recruit, Crossman finds himself in the middle of major trouble: the Order's old enemies the Teutonic Knights, an ancient demonic artifact, an unloved figure out of his own past as a more mundane sort of secret agent, and Sister Mary Magdalene, of the show more Special Action Executive Branch of the Poor Clares. (That Maggie's actually on his side doesn't make Peter Crossman feel much better about her involvement.) This is a fairly light spy romp, but with the time and care taken to get right all the Catholic background that's so important to the plot and the characters. It appears that this is the start of a series, and I look forward to seeing more of both Peter and Maggie.

Recommended. show less

(Amy) Some people (and yes, Mike Kozlowski, I'm looking at you) are advocates of buying everything that looks remotely interesting the moment it comes out, because if you later decide you want it, there's a decent chance it will be out of print. And, well, I can't actually argue with the general idea, though adequate implementation would perhaps require an hefty expense account and a giant warehouse, not to mention minions to keep it all properly catalogued. We have enough trouble keeping up with the few thousand books we do have around...

I bring this up, you see, because this is a book I heard good things about years ago - when it was published, I imagine, which would make it six years ago - and thought, OK, I'll pick that up if I see show more it used or in paperback. After all, at the time, I was living by myself in a Kansas City apartment on $7/hour, and my book budget was . . . well, let's say that despite it being about ten times what it should perhaps have been for the sake of prudence, it was still not particularly large, and buying hardcovers new just didn't happen much at all. Well, I never did find it, and by the time I got a slightly larger book budget it wasn't as high on my priority list anymore, it being a couple of years later. And by the time I set out to pick it up, it was out of print.

Well, thanks to a friend's library-downsizing project, I managed to snag a copy, and have now achieved the goal of reading it. Verdict: Good god, I'm glad I actually hadn't read a plot summary, because in this post Da Vinci Code era I'm decidedly leery of ecclesiastical-conspiracy fiction, and I might have given it a miss. And that, y'all, would have been a bleedin' tragedy, because this book is brilliant. The writing snaps, and while the characters aren't the most fully-fledged in the world, they're pretty much on a level, characterization-wise, with quite a few noir-style books I've read, with the added flip of being, well, clergy. And the plot is . . . well, OK, the plot is cheesy, but in a fun way. And any writer who can have a fleet of bad guys who are interdimensional mushrooms is pretty awesome in my book.

Basically, it's not to be missed. Go find yourself a copy, right now.
( http://weblog.siliconcerebrate.com/zenos-library/2008/07/the_apocalypse_door_jam... ) show less

This moves at a dead run, with black humour gasped out here and there. Not what you'd read for lyrical description or introspective character development--the main character does have a crisis of faith, but he has to keep running while he has it. It's great fun, but I wouldn't describe it as a romp, because there's an edge of seriousness throughout, not so much because of the threatened apocalypse (which is almost a staple of urban fantasy: Buffy stalled it at least once a month) as the questions of faith and purpose that move the characters.

This book was a lot of fun and I really enjoyed it. It is rather hard to describe. It's a theological thriller - the Knights Templar went underground in the Middle Ages, but they're still around, fighting evil by fighting hard. Peter Crossman, Knight of the Cross, takes on demonic forces, armed with a gun, a new partner, a nun/assassin, and a pure heart. What's not to love?

I know the theology well, and enjoyed that aspect. As I non-Catholic, I know that I missed a lot of the in-jokes. (Yes, there are in-jokes. This is a funny theological thriller.) However, the plot was sharp and the writing was good and the mystery made sense at the end.

Recommended

Lots of action and mayhem. The ecclesiastical bent to noir is amusing, but I don't think you can actually drink that much alcohol and still shoot straight.

Apparently the Knights Templar make excellent secret agents. Who knew? Fluffy but fun.

Boring, cliched urban fantasy. Didn’t finish it.