What starts out on a sleepy summer morning in a Midwestern town as just a parish annoyance—a frightened widow and the embarrassment and squabbling of her socially prominent children—rapidly develops into a case of mysterious disappearance and a thoroughly dead corpse. On the way we meet a cluster of amusingly colorful characters with, at their heart, Father Roger Dowling, veteran of years of exposure to his fellow creatures. Inured as he is to human folly, philosophically detached and quite unshockable, Father Dowling yet has a passion for seeing clearly. And where crime is concerned, he must see clearly: the intent behind the crime is his utmost concern. </p> HER DEATH OF COLD, the first of the new Father Dowling Mystery series, promises satisfaction ahead for detective-story readers everywhere, far beyond the limits of Father Dowling’s parish.