Book of Tobit: Past Praying For (1968), by Sara Woods

The Book of Tobit is an apocryphal biblical text, still found, so I read, in Catholic Bibles but not Protestant ones, which tells the tale of Tobit, Tobit's son Tobias and Sarah. On a journey to recover ten silver talents owed to his family Tobias, guided by the archangel Raphael, meets Sarah, who as it happens is rather afflicted with a jealous demon, Asmodeus, in her life. This dreadful fellow, it seems, has slain Sarah's previous seven husbands (who says seven is a lucky number), but brave Tobias, who is smitten as well with Sarah (she must have been really something), with Raphael's assistance vanquishes demonic Asmodeus and lives happily ever after in wedded bliss with his bride. Seems like some of the most entertaining parts of the Bible ended up in the Apocrypha!Wedding of Tobias and Sarah; Raphael Binds the Demon, by Jan Steen, c. 1660In Past Praying For, the fourteenth of Sarah Woods' Anthony Maitland detective novels, the author seems to have drawn a bit on the Book of…