For those frustrated with detached academic discourse about death, Neil Leroux's book offers respite by not only exploring Luther's views but also contrasting them to modern approaches. Moreover, Leroux applies rhetorical analysis (with a handy glossary of terms) and makes a fitting contribution to Brill's Studies in the History of Christian Traditions, the founder of which, Heiko Oberman, often urged the breaking of historical sound barriers to make sense of the past. Leroux provides an antidote to the recent ahistorical musings of Richard Marius on Luther, treating readers to careful investigations of a variety of literary genres employed by Luther to address death: The fourteen consolations, A sermon on preparing to die (both from 1519), martyrological literature, two funeral sermons, letters of comfort for the grieving and Whether one may flee from the deadly plague. The author outlines Luther's approach to death and dying, comparing it to the role of saints, late medieval ars moriendi and modern practices. Although at times the detailed rhetorical analysis neglects aspects of the historical context and leaves the reader wondering what point Luther was trying to make, Leroux's approach shows that there is more to Luther's writing than meets the eye. Luther was a highly skilled rhetorician who used his remarkable gift to serve the Gospel and deliver comfort to those beset by death. One of the best chapters describes Luther's letters to mourners. On top of meticulous rhetorical analysis, which reveals Luther's commitment to God's Word and the comfort of the cross and resurrection, this chapter unlocks Luther's heart, as the Reformer, himself a mourner, seeks to comfort the bereaved by acknowledging God at work in death and in consolation. In two chapters on tracts from 1519, the author shows that what already mattered to Luther at this early stage was God's Word of promise and faith and (without stating it) that ‘medieval remnants’ found in these tracts served this conviction. Unfortunately, the author does not mention that Luther uses Christ's passion to describe ‘The burning of Brother Henry’ or that ‘Word of God’ in Luther means not simply the Bible but the proclamation of God's mercy in Christ ‘for us’. On the other hand, the author carefully places Luther's funeral sermons for Elector John in historical context, without, however, taking fully into account what fears the prince's sudden death would have evoked in Luther's hearers (which he then seeks to allay) or how the publication of these sermons was itself an important literary and historical event, showing how evangelical princes die and are buried. Although most of Leroux's criticisms of modern English translations of Luther are correct, on one point he is wrong. In German (as Grimm, xviii. 431 makes clear) the noun ‘das Sterben’ first and foremost means the plague (as in English: the Black Death). Thus, translations by Tappert and Doberstein (Whether one may flee from the deadly plague [=Sterben]) are correct, and one of Leroux's points (that Luther never refers to the plague [=Pestilenz] until rather late in the tract) is not. These things aside, the book sheds important light on Luther as pastor.