The Bishop has a "mop of snow-white hair", a "wide, high brow with ... lines of pain' and a "firm jaw", and wears reading glasses. He starts each day at 5.0am with half an hour of exercises on a set of pulleys and bars by his bed "As a result, the guy's upper body is as useful as his lower is useless". As for his faith, Davey explains, "I did ask him once how he reconciled his devotion to God with his sometimes lousy disposition. He smiled his little smile, and said, 'Just consider, David, what I'd be like, if I didn't spend those five hours with the Lord, every day!' "

He is "Archdiocesan Director of Personnel" but "was currently building a stack of unanswered mail high enough to smother him if he sneezed". But he spent most of each morning in the chapel, then spent the afternoons either trying to complete his latest work (The Suffering of the Godly: David, Jeremiah, Micah and Paul) or, if he was having a depression, reading.

Meanwhile Davey does all his legwork for him, as well as being his driver, typist, and general fixer. "I have excellent job security," he explains, as "no-one else will put up with him". The Bishop may not be "the best listener in the world, if by good listening you mean empathy. The man's about as empathetic as a lobster. But when he gets it in gear, he can assimilate, collate, and juggle facts with superhuman speed. He can also turn a mishmash into a coherent, logical whole."

The two of them make a good team, even if they are more than a little reminiscent of Rex Stout's sedentary detective Nero Wolfe and his assistant Archie Goodwin. It is Dave Goldman, like Archie Goodwin, who is the storyteller throughout.

William F Love (1932- ) grew up in Oklahoma, became a Benedictine monk at St Gregory's Abbey there, and was ordained as a Catholic priest in 1958. Following his resignation from the priesthood in 1969, he married, and became a banker at the First National Bank of Chicago. From 1984-1988 he worked as a private consultant, before becoming a full-time novelist, but he only appears to have published four books. He and his wife, with their two daughters, lived in Hinsdale, Illinois.

The Chartreuse Clue (1990)
The Chartreuse Clue tells how Benedictine monk, Father William Fuller, who has been sent by his Abbot to work on his PhD in New York city, uses a false name to strike up a friendship - and possibly more - with a beautiful woman named Barbara McClain. Then one morning he wakes up in another room in her apartment to find that she has been stabbed to death.

Innocent, but desperate to keep his true identity secret, Fuller turns to his friend, the wheelchair-bound Bishop Francis X Regan, for help. The Bishop, concerned about a potential scandal involving the church, decides to try to solve the murder, while shielding Father Fuller from the police. He soon involves his Special Assistant, the Jewish ex-cop and now part-time private investiigator Davey Goldman - and it is he who tells the story. As they probe into the dead woman's background, he and the Bishop find thermselves in a race with the police to try to find ther murderer before the police can locate and identify Father Fuller.

The Bishop is something of "a frustrated cop. You could see it in his face", and he certainly seems to enjoy listening to Davey's detailed accounts of what he has been doing, and suggesting what he should do next. And it is he who eventually identifies the murderer, and works out a scheme to entrap him/her. In the process even he gets involved in a fight, and it all builds up to an effective climax.

There are some nice humorous comments, as when Davey remarks, "I felt like the guy who found out his mother-in-law drove his new Mercedes off the cliff: mixed emotions", but some of his investigations seem rather prolonged, although the two main characters are lively enough.

The Fundamentals of Murder (1991)
The Fundamentals of Murder explains how Bishop Regan, opposed as he is to religious fundamentalism ("a misguided and simplistic reaction to nineteenth-century theological liberalism"), cannot help being impressed by Jerry Fanning, a young fundamentalist preacher who is convinced that the Lord has sent him to see the Bishop as part of his task to convert the entire city of New York to Jesus. But then the police, led by the Bishop's old acquaintance and Head of Homicide, Inspector Kessler, uncover clues pointing to Fanning as the sought-after "Strangler John", the murderer of three prostitutes and a model. Fanning, who has been less than honest with the police, is soon arrested. The Bishop is convinced that the police have got the wrong man and sends his Special Assistant Davey Goldman out looking for clues as to the murderer's real identity.

The story gets off to an interesting start and there are some good comic passages, as when Davey manages to get himself mistaken for an attorney and attends a highly confidential meeting between two people, all the while having to pretend that he is the attorney of the other one. It makes an entertaining and even quite exciting situation. But some of Davey's long interviews with people about the past are less interesting. But the author has a habit of dropping in hints like "I'd picked up the obvious one (clue) but didn't consider its implications, with unfortunate results later on for me personally" that keep us on our toes.

Davey comes up with amusing asides as when he explains, "Sometimes I'm almost as quick on the uptake as I think I should be" or when he goes on "to lend immoral support". And it all ends with the Bishop about to go into one of his regular depressions because "he was miffed that I'd solved the case without him. That I'd never have got to first base without him, much less second or third, didn't count." He explains that he felt guilty as he had put Davey in real danger, but Davey is not one to hold that against him. But, as Inspector Kessler tells him, "It'd sure be nice if you were ever to get me involved in one of your cases before the murderer had tried to kill you or Davey."
Regan smiled. "Next time, Inspector. You have my word."

Bloody Ten (1992)
Bloody Ten starts with Davey Goldman accompanying his long-time girl friend, the psychiatrist Sally Castle, to the dress rehearsal of a new production of the comic play A Thousand Clowns that features her friend Dinker Galloway. Davey is impressed both by her performance and that of fellow actor Jim Kearney, But then Jim Kearney's long-lost half-brother, Nick, appears on the scene, looking for money, and asks Davey to mediate in an argument with his brother - and he ends up murdered.The police suspect Jim, but Davey, convinced of his innocence, helps him hide from the law. he also falls in love with Jim's girl friend. Then Jim is tracked down and arrested. It is, of course, the Bishop who eventually identifies the real murderer.

At first it makes an interesting story with a lot of things happening in the present rather than too many long interviews about what has happened in the past. There are some nice descriptions, such as: "Walking into Paddy's Pub was like coming home. There can't be more than four hundred bars in New York just like it. Dark, the way drinkers want it. And filled with the fine aroma of recycled beer and yesterday's nicotine".

The Bishop's relationship with the narrator Davey still holds the interest. As Davey explains, "He's always more interested in my cases than in his own work .... Seven years ago, when I first started working for him, I'd never have dreamed of bringing him a detective problem. How he ever got involved - well, that's a story in itself. It all started with him showing some interest. From there, it worked up to his making 'suggestions'. Somehow, over the years, those 'suggestions' have turned into commands, don't ask me how. By the time I got into the McClain case last year, he'd worked up to senior partner." The Bishop who "loves to pretend to be miffed at missing sleep, but loves bizarre happenings" is now even prepared to set out on awkward journeys to see what is happening for himself.And there is one particularly effective scene where he really does put an officious Deputy Sherrif in his place.

But the end of the book gets increasingly protracted and complicated. It is acceptable to have one confrontration of the Bishop with all the suspects asembled together, although, as Davey points out, "This was beginning to look like an attempt to replay our final confrontation with the murderer in the McClain case (the one a friend of mine calls The Case of the Chartreuse Clue, a description that's a bit too melodramatic for my taste)." But in this book there is also a second confrontation and it all begins to get a bit tedious, especially as the surprise ending - when it eventually comes - is far from convincing.

Bishop's Revenge (1993)
Bishop's Revenge sees Bishop Regan and Davey Goldman being asked to help defend Eddie Goode, the very mugger who had shot the Bishop 8 years before and put him in a wheelchair. He is now in prison on another murder charge. Davey remembers how, as a cop, he had saved the Bishop's life after he had been shot by giving him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. There is an interesting flashback to what happened at the time, including how Goode escaped conviction, and how it led to Davey being forced to resign from the NewYork Police Department. But, much opposed though Davey is to helping Goode, even if he is innocent, the Bishop refers him to Proverbs: If thine enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat; and if he be thirsty, give him water to drink; For thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head. So this is how the Bishop will get his "revenge".

There is some dramatic action in the story, as when Davey fights off a violent bully, and when he pulls his usual trick of letting people imagine he is someone other than he is: "I've never pretended to be anyone I'm not. People sometimes think I'm someone else, but that's their problem." But that's not quite how the police see it.

There are some good comic moments too as when Davey tries to interview two quarrelling old sisters. One of them had picked Eddie Goode out at a police line-up: " 'So he's going to prison. I guess you know that, though'
'Yes. You're obviously a very perceptive lady, Ms. Lake. I - '
'Miss!' she sniffed. But she looked pleased.
'Excuse me, Miss Lake. So I - '
'Sure she wants to be called Miss,' Crystal (her sister) put in. 'As if the likes of her could've ever got married. I was married, you know. But it didn't take.'
'Of course it didn't take. It'd take a saint to live with this one, Mr Goldman.'
'Oh, it'd take a saint to live with me?' Crystal's voice was rising. 'Well, I can tell you this, big sister. You're just about - '
'Hold it, ladies!' I got enough volume in it to shout them up. They both looked at me, red-faced and deprived."

The basic plot, though, is not strong enough to hold the interest throughout, and the way the Bishop's eventually gets Inspector Kessler to assemble the six suspects in his room lacks conviction. "I'll give it a shot," Kessler said. "Though I don't know what you're trying to accomplish."
"Very simple. I know who the murderer is. I need to prove it to you. With the help if those six people, I mean to do so." And, of course, he does - but we don't get sufficiently involved with the characters to care all that much. It is all getting to sound a little tired - so it is not altogether surprising that this proved to be the last novel in the series.

There is hardly anything about William Love on the web except for an article in the Chicago Tribune about his religious views.

A good source of used copies of his books is abebooks. They feature the stock of 13,000 booksellers from all over the world, and I have always found them to be very reliable.

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