Martin Kilmartin is a popular young Notre Dame professor and a promising poet, and as far as everyone on campus knows, he's off to visit his ancestral Ireland over winter break. It's a shock, then, when Professor Kilmartin is discovered dead in his office, never having made it to his winter retreat. Apparently the victim of a weak heart, Kilmartin dies just months before he was to be wed, and on the heels of some outstanding recognition for his verse.

All in all, it seems to be just another campus tragedy, and while some question the official explanation for his death, the police are content to blame his medical condition for his untimely demise. That is, until Professor Roger Knight, big man on campus and compulsively curious amateur sleuth, gets involved. The rotund professor's interest is piqued after reading some of Kilmartin's melancholic work, and he discovers several anomalies at the crime scene when investigating the case. Before long, he's unearthed more than a few people with motive to harm the burgeoning artist.

Roger's first task, with the help of his brother Phil, will be to determine whether there has in fact been a crime, and if so, who exactly was behind it. Before he's through, he'll use his diverse experience with poetry, literature, Irish history, and Notre Dame lore, not to mention his ear for university gossip, to get to the bottom of another fascinating academic whodunit from master storyteller Ralph McInerny.

Genre: Mystery