Tim Willocks, The Religion

The Religion

Tim Willocks

Farrar, Straus and Giroux, May 2007. $26.00

ISBN: 0374248656

In 1540 in the Fagaras Mountains of Hungary, Muslim scarlet horsemen abduct twelve-year-old Mattias Tannhauser, the son of Saxon metal-smiths. They train him as a holy warrior whose entrance to heaven is to die in combat. However, he eventually obtains his release and settles in Sicily where Mattias, taking advantage of having solid feet in the competing religious camps, becomes a successful arms broker.

In 1565, widow Contessa Carla La Penautier arrives in Sicily to hire Tannhauser to find her illegitimate twelve-year-old son Orlandu, who she reluctantly abandoned at his birth due to uncaring pressure. Unable to resist her siren's call, Mattias agrees to go with Carla to Malta at a time that the Turkish Ottoman Suleiman the Magnificent declares a jihad to eradicate the affluent influential Knights Hospitaller of St. John, a monastic order based in Malta. On the disputed Mediterranean island, Mattias and Carla struggle to survive when the Turks begin their assault on the St. John knights. However, even more dangerous to the pair than the war is the arrival of dreaded Inquisition monk Ludovico Ludovici, working under order of Cardinal Michele Ghisleri, who deviously plans to bring Malta under papal rule after he takes care of a certain twelve-year-old indiscretion that he sired with a teenage Carla.

This is an exciting swashbuckling look at a real sixteenth century religious war mostly from the perspective of the dashing hero who is one of the few people who seems to understand both sides of the conflict. The storyline is action-packed, but it is the cast who brings to life 1565 Malta as the prime triangle (Mattias, Carla and Ludovico) seem genuine and the combatants fighting in God's name appear real. Readers will appreciate this terrific historical holy war thriller that grips the audience from the opening kidnapping until the final confrontation with more to follow.

Harriet Klausner