The crusader - Michael Eisner

In the latter half of the thirteenth century Christian Europe once more sough to prise the Holy Land out of the grasp of the Infidel. Tens of thousands took up the Cross. Some went for the greater glory of God, others out of lust for power, for riches, for revenge.

Here then is the story o the seventh and last Crusade, as experienced by the young Spanish nobleman, Don Francisco de Montcada, but as told by his former friend and fellow acolyte, a venal and moderately trustworthy Cistercian monk named Brother Lucas. For Francisco has returned from the Levant a broken and seemingly possessed man. The Inquisition decrees that his tortured soul be exorcized and the task falls to Brother Lucas. Eschewing the Inquisition's more usual methods, the monk sits with the silent, emaciated knight in his cell and talks to him. And slowly, tentatively, Francisco begins to tell his brutal and bloody tale...

Set against a thrillingly recreated historical backdrop, The Crusader is a rousing novel of religious fervour and human frailty, of greed and betrayal, and of love and war that brings an extraordinary, tumultuous era brilliantly to life.