Title: Saint Bloodbath
Author: Frederick Douglass Reynolds
Publisher: DeltonRamsey
ISBN: B0C2SBF6H6
Pages: 375
Genre: True Crime Biographies
Reviewed by: Christina Avina
Hollywood Book Reviews
The path of true justice is a long and bumpy road for all involved. Whether it is the investigators turning over every stone to find the truth, or the family and friends of the victim who seek not only justice but answers to why their loved one is no longer there, or the general public who lives in a state of anticipation and anxiety as they await news of the investigation’s findings, true justice takes time, and doesn’t always look like what we expect it to look like in the end.
In author Frederick Douglass Reynolds’s Saint Bloodbath, the author interviews investigators and shows the puzzle behind a series of brutal murders in Southern California. In 2008 and 2009, Detectives McGuire and Cortes were assigned to investigate a series of gruesome homicides within a homeless encampment, and are known not only for homelessness but for drug and gang violence. Using their years of experience, the detectives spend their time putting the pieces of these horrific slayings together, and when the hand of a sixth victim found 100 miles away in the California desert if found, they must go across jurisdictions to put the pieces together and find their killer before it’s too late.
The author did a great job of not only presenting the facts of this case, but of really bringing the reader into the story of this case itself, using imagery and atmosphere to make the people involved in the cast feel alive on the page. The intimate look at everything from the events which brought the main victims of this case into the situation they were living in and the relationship they had with one another, to the inside look into the minds of the investigators as they put the pieces together and more, each chapter did an amazing job of finding just right balance of a documentary crime series meeting a fact-by-fact criminal investigation.
This is the perfect read for those who enjoy non-fiction books, especially those which involve true crime and the ins-and-outs of police investigations, especially in regards to homicides and how these investigations are handled. The realities of these investigations, the brutality of the violence, and the time it takes to really put these pieces together not only sheds a lot of the images readers will have in their minds thanks to television dramas, but will illuminate the emotional and psychological toll an investigation of this severity and magnitude will have on investigators, the victim’s families, and more.
Profound, insightful, and captivating, author Frederick Douglass Reynolds’s Saint Bloodbath is a must-read true crime book and a chilling in-depth look into the heart of one of Long Beach, CA’s most brutal slayings in the city’s history. The cold and thoughtless actions of the killers and the craft full presentation of the crime and subsequent investigation the author provides not only presents in a very almost cinematic way narratively, but captures the heart of this investigation and the hard work these investigators put into solving this case, as well as what justice truly looks like for the victims of the case.