At their founding, they were a poor monastic order. As Warrior Monks, the King of Jerusalem gave them the responsibility of protecting Christian pilgrims on the roads to and from the Holy City. In gratitude for their service, the King housed them in the Temple of Solomon. They were known then as the Poor Fellow Soldiers of Christ and King Solomon's Temple, shortened soon after to the Knights Templar.

It is the mysterious founding of this group of knights that lays at the foundation of my new novel The Youngest Templar: Keeper of The Grail. Shortly after taking residence in King Solomon's temple, the knights began an extensive excavation of the ground beneath the Temple. No one has ever been able to discover what it is they found with all the digging.

But they must have found something, an artifact, a hidden or long lost text, or some other item of great value to Christianity. For almost overnight, this poor monastic order became the most powerful, wealthy and influential organization in all of Christendom. Recognized throughout the Christian world by wearing white tunics with bright red crosses across the chest, the Knights Templar amassed tremendous wealth, lands, and influence in a matter of a few short years.

The Youngest Templar: Keeper of the Grail is the first novel I've written with a male protagonist. I've already received feedback from teachers and librarians who have praised me for writing a ‘boy book'. I know how difficult it is to get boys reading these days and getting positive responses from those on the frontline is tremendously gratifying.

But let's not forget the girls! In addition to Tristan and Robard Hode, the hero and his sidekick, The Youngest Templar: Keeper of the Grail also features a tough as nails female character, Maryam, a young Muslim girl who enters the story first as an enemy, then joins with Tristan and Robard to help them complete Tristan's mission to carry the Holy Grail to safety.

Maryam is a member of the mysterious warrior cult Al Hashshashin or ‘the Assassins' as it is translated to English. The Assassins were fanatical and ferocious fighters and Maryam is a proud member of their ranks. When she is wounded in an attack, Tristan insists they nurse her back to health. Grateful for their help, she guides them to Tyre where they hope to catch a ship to England.

Maryam is the kind of character I love. As the father of a sixteen year old girl, I'm very particular about how I portray the female characters in my novels. Maryam is every bit the equal of Tristan and Robard. With her twin daggers, she isn't afraid of a scrap, and she's not one to wait around for ‘the boys' to rescue her. Smart and capable, that's Maryam.

Asking a writer to choose a favorite character from their own work is a little like asking a parent to choose their favorite child. Most of my writer friends tell me their characters become very ‘real' to them. My characters in The Youngest Templar: Keeper of the Grail are no exception. Each of them has a unique voice and style, and while I'm personally very fond of Tristan, the hero, I find that all of the characters of the book have carved out a special place in my heart.

At a library event recently, I was asked a question about character development and did I ever use real people as the archetypes for the personalities of my characters? The answer was yes, of course. And in The Youngest Templar: Keeper of the Grail, there is no better example of this than Robard Hode.

Robard enters the story after Tristan has escaped an about-to-be-overrun Acre with the Holy Grail. On his way to Tyre, the nearest coastal city, he is set upon by bandits. About to lose everything, he's rescued by a young King's Archer, a boy just a bit older than he. A young man, named Robard Hode, who was born in Sherwood Forest near the shire of Nottingham.

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There was an owl on one of the teepee poles at my ranch last night and, if you're lucky enough to live adjacent to Indian Country, you pay attention to such things. The Cheyenne see the owls as messengers from the other side, and I couldn't help but wonder who it was that was sending something a little more than special delivery.

I always thought he looked a little like an owl, even before I met him. The way the tufts of hair perched up on his head and the pointed nose-but most of all it was the eyes; not so much the eyes of an eagle because those carry a self-concern, but more like the eyes that see past self-interest.

He was 83, and he lived in Albuquerque with, in his own words "now-and-then rhematic arthritis, in-remission cancer, a minor heart-attack, a mediocre eye, one tricky ankle and two unreliable knees..." He began teaching at the University of New Mexico in 1967 and, with a wife and six children, he struggled to make ends meet. The story goes that he was typing away in his office late one night and an associate enthused, "You must be the hardest working professor we have here at the University."

He looked up with the twinkle his eyes always carried, his glasses perched at the end of his nose. "Actually, I'm writing a book."

Undaunted, the woman remarked. "How wonderful, what's it about?"

"It's a mystery."

She was crest-fallen. "With all your knowledge of Navajo art, culture, society and history-why are you wasting your time writing a mystery novel?"

Like most writers, I'm often asked what are my favorite books and from what other writers inspire me? My answer to that question is usually: it depends. Because I tend to write across genres, I find inspiration in many different places. When I began writing The Youngest Templar: Keeper of the Grail, I think my biggest influence was Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces, a book I turned to time and time again.

The Youngest Templar: Keeper of the Grail is a hero's quest. What you discover in reading Campbell's work is that the hero's quest is a story told repeatedly in different forms in almost every culture. If you think about it, the hero of almost any dramatic work is on some sort of quest. It may be an internal quest for self-discovery or validation or a very external quest: to solve the crime, save the girl/town/world, or to complete some charge that the hero has been given.

In The Youngest Templar: Keeper of the Grail, my hero Tristan is given a very sacred duty. He is ordered by his knight, Sir Thomas Leux, to safeguard the Holy Grail. The cup of Christ. The most sacred relic in all of Christendom. Sir Thomas orders Tristan to return with the Grail from the Holy Land to Scotland. He must keep it safe at all costs. Tell no one. Trust no one. So begins Tristan's journey.

However, when I started my novel, no one bothered to tell me you needed more than just a setting. Apparently, a good novel also needs a plot, characters, dramatic tension, and also things like words and punctuation if it is going to succeed. So I had my setting. Now I needed a character.

1191 A.D. The orphan Tristan has joined the Knights Templar as a squire, journeying with Richard the Lionheart on his crusade to free the Holy Land from the Saracens. As defeat looms near, Tristan is entrusted with the most sacred of Christian relics, the Holy Grail. He must return it safely to Britain, but he must also keep it secret, because the Grail’s power will drive men to madness, and even his fellow Knights Templar will kill for it.

Tristan teams up with the fiery Robard Hode— returning to his home in Sherwood after serving with the King’s Archers—and Maryam, an equally fierce girl and a member of the dreaded Hashshashin. Together they must escape the Holy Land, dodging bandits, the forces of the Saladin, and unscrupulous knights who will stop at nothing to possess the Grail.