One of my favorite books from First Second in recent years was Solomon's Thieves by Jordan Mechner (Prince of Persia) and the fantastic art team of LeUyen Pham and Alex Puvilland. I reviewed it for Robot 6, and talked about how much I was looking forward to the following two parts of the trilogy. In Dumas-like fashion, Mechner added swashbuckling flourishes to historical fact to create an exciting story about the rank-and-file knights of the Templar order who found themselves, as Mechner describes them, “pawns in a political chess game their simple ideals of chivalry and brotherhood hadn’t equipped them for.”

For fans of Solomon's Thieves, the wait is finally over, and not just for the second volume. Rather than publish the last two parts of the trilogy as separate books, First Second is releasing the entire epic as a single volume called Templar, to debut in July.

First Second provided ROBOT 6 with the following preview: