This summer's trip to France - The Templar's Last Secret

Bruno's St. Denis - art journal collage
Magazine and Vintage book scraps 

If you have been following my blog for a while you may have notice the shift from using photos of the books I've read to photos of my art journaling. Often I find pieces which represent the theme of the book I was blogging about. Perhaps that is because my artwork is influence by my choice of reading or vice versa. Today I needed to create a piece specifically for this blog's book title - Martin Walker's newest, Bruno Chief of Police novel, The Templar's Last Secret. 

I began by imagine what Bruno's village of St. Denis and it surrounds would look like. One of the home decorating magazines I recently purchased featured French cottages. Prefect! Add to that a vintage book of French stories and another about the Impressionists and I was ready to get to work with my scissors and glue stick.

This novel centers around an ancient castle believed to have once been a Templar strong hold. A woman has fallen to her death following an attempt to deface the property with spray paint, but where is her climbing equipment and the can of paint? This isn't an accident and Bruno is now on the hunt. Before the reader knows it Bruno and his colleagues are tracking a small band of terrorists and trying to determine their target. One possible target is the treasured Lascaux caves in the region. Found by four boys in 1940, the caves are filled with paintings created over 20,000 years ago by the inhabitants of the region. The caves were closed eventually to the public to prevent their destruction due to the humidity created by visitors' respiration. A replica has since been created on the site of the original caves.

To the inhabitants of St. Denis the idea that their sleepy village is threatened by terrorists seems absurd. Doesn't that only happen in the big city? As one character states, there is no where we can be safe now. That was a chilly reminder for me. Here in the United States the increasing gun violence is an issue that we have all come to face. This new reality was never more apparent to me as when I sat in an auditorium with my colleagues - all of us school teachers - learning from our local law enforcement how to deal with an active shooting situation. Frightening though it may be, I will not allow this to paralyze me and prevent me from going about my business. I'm saddened that this is the new world we live in, but I know that I can work to be a source of peace.

New Installments in Favorite Series

More reads from
Martin Walker and James Runcie

It's always a thrill when one of your favorite authors has put out a new work especially one in a series where you can follow the development of a set of characters. However, there can be a sense of awkwardness when you come into the middle of the character's story line, which I have on more than one occasion, and the author alludes to previous adventures and you have no clue what that means to the character. Then again it does give you the opportunity to search out the earlier titles and catch up on what you've missed, for example I did that with Elly Griffith's Dr. Ruth Galloway series. The only other problem I have experienced with a book series has been that sometimes the author becomes to formulaic and the stories lose their attraction, most notably for me, Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum books. Thankfully, Martin Walker and James Runcie have come through once more.

The Grantchester Mysteries feature now Archdeacon Sidney Chambers as amateur sleuth and Anglican priest. In this newest installment, Sidney Chambers and the Dangers of Temptation,  the 1960s are drawing to a close and world events are drawing Sidney, his family and friends, and society into a new era. As with the earlier books, Sidney is struggling to balance his pastoral duties with his curiosity with crime and assisting his friend Detective Keating with his cases, add to that the pressures of marriage and fatherhood and now you have a character who is forever evolving and never growing boring.

Reading a story that takes place around the time I was a small child gives me a glimpse of what the world was like as I cannot remember those events for I was not yet three when the men walked on the moon. Most notably in this installment of the series, for me at least, was the episode dealing with homosexuality and the legal system in England. In earlier books, Sidney's curate Leonard, is portrayed as struggling with his sexuality, but in this book he has finally met the right person and has fallen in love. Unfortunately, even though homosexuality is no longer a punishable offense, the Church of England hasn't come to grips with the issue nor have many people in society. Leonard is faced with the difficult decision to come out when faced with blackmail. Sidney in his ever caring and thoughtful way gives support to Leonard and instructs the reader about the capacity of God's love. I won't spoil the outcome for you, only know that we are finally making strides today to be inclusive of all.

In contrast, Bruno Courreges, lives very much in our present time, but history has a way of impacting life and one can't always out run its influence. The Children Return focuses on a young autistic man, Sami, from Bruno's village who had disappeared from a local Mosque school and surfaces in Afghanistan. In spite of his disability, or rather as a result of his unique gifts, Sami is in fact a notorious bomb maker wanted by many governments for the deaths of many military personnel. As the book unfolds we are told of the brutality Sami witnessed and suffered in his home country of Algeria and of the impact that the violent struggle that occurred when fighting for independence from France had on him and others. Martin has explored this issue in other books as well.  Now as an adult, Sami has been used by others in their violent struggles. Here too I will not spoil the outcome of the story for you, only to say that terrorists are not born they are made. Children who are witness to brutality or suffer from bullying or abuse will have their personalities altered by the experience and some may grow up to be abusers themselves either on a small scale in their own circle or on a larger world level.