Bloody Padre

By age 10, Billy has had enough of his bully dad, and decides that some day he'll kill him. Also, at ten, he realizes that the local priest has a pretty good life. So maybe he'll try to be one. He becomes close friends with another abused boy, and they try to set a trap to injure their dads. A girl at school falls for Billy, and the three are inseparable. At the seminary, he runs into more bullies. There, he meets a Tibetan and finds a different idea of God. As a senior, he gets expelled for disobedience. Drafted, he goes to Korea. Wounded three times, he is mistakenly sent to a Turkish hospital, and discovers he can't speak. Sometime later, at an American hospital, he is finally 'cured.' His mother has died, and his girlfriend has moved. Billy wants to find her, but feels he is not ready emotionally to be with her.

As above, but while at the seminary, he has a dream, and travels north to an Indian reservation to get it interpreted. There, he discovers that his Spirit has been re-incarnated from a Great Hunter from years ago. Both he and the old Indian interpreter don't want to believe it, but finally must. While in Korea, he goes across enemy lines with Turks at night to kill unsuspecting soldiers. Winter, he comes across a foxhole covered with a tarp for warmth, and stabs a young soldier in the throat. But the soldier looks like a picture of an Oriental Madonna he had seen, and he can't escape the image. An enemy barrage wounds him, and he ends up then in the Turkish hospital.

Thad's writing through the years has been primarily short stories and poetry, interrupted by a Navy tour, college, and raising a family. This is his third novel, with a fourth nearly finished.