Signed in Blood

Mrs. Wentworth came to see Father Bredder with a very disturbing story. She was terrified of being murdered – burned to death – by her husband. She told him of the time her mattress was soaked in gasoline, and other mysterious incidents. She’s even heard her husband’s voice telling her that she must be burned! But how could this be possible? Mrs. Wentworth’s husband, a dentist, has been dead for two months, having died in a traffic accident!

Father Bredder doesn’t brush off Mrs. Wentworth’s story, though – he has a nasty feeling of having spotted Satan’s hand at work in this situation, and he enlists the help of Lieutenant Louis Minardi of the Los Angeles police to investigate Mrs. Wentworth’s story. When the case turns deadly, Father Bredder must investigate who made A Pact with Satan, selling their soul to the Evil One by committing murder…

It takes a devil to make a saint

A while ago I read Otto Penzler’s The Great Detectives: The World’s Most Celebrated Sleuths Unmasked by Their Authors. It was a wonderful book, with essays from various authors describing the birth of their detectives. And one of the most fascinating essays of the bunch came from a man named Leonard Holton. I’d never heard of him before, but apparently in the 70s, he was known as the creator of Father Joseph Bredder, a detective well-known enough to be included in The Great Detectives.

Immediately I went to the Kindle store. After all, nearly every other author included in The Great Detectives is Kindle-available. But I was met with a blank: as far as Amazon was concerned, Leonard Holton had never existed, and Father Bredder also turned up a blank. So I went on a mission to find something written by Leonard Holton. The mission ended surprisingly early: my ever-reliable local used bookstore, Paperbacks Unlimited, had two Holton novels on the racks inside the store. A few dollars later, I walked out of the store eagerly clutching The Saint Maker and Deliver us from Wolves.