The debut novel pairing a kindly priest and a relentless policeman gives this gripping murder mystery series "a chilling but entertaining start" (New York Journal of Books).

In New Mexico, two separate crimes have occurred. A teenage girl has vanished in Santa Fe. And in the Trappist monastery of St. Mary of the Snows, a beautiful young nun has been stabbed to death.

Father Nicholas Fortis is on sabbatical at St. Mary's, and when Lieutenant Christopher Worthy of the Detroit Police Department is flown in to help find the missing teenager, the Orthodox monk asks his friend to delve into the nun's murder as well. The two men make a surprisingly good team, as the monk's gregarious manner opens hearts while the detective's keen intuition infiltrates psyches.

As the cases twist and seem to merge together, the clues lead the unlikely pair in opposite directions. But at the end of one of those paths, death is waiting to claim another victim . . . in this "excellent mystery" that brings together "a great team in Fortis and Worthy" (Rich Zahradnik).