My Guilty Pleasure
I confess that I have a guilty pleasure. I love to read crime fiction, murder mysteries, and police procedurals. The “whodunit” world is a universe which fills me with exhilarating oxygen. Following clues, paying attention to detective interviews, and gobbling up character development all the way to a riveting arrest scene…very little in life will make me as happy as reading a finely constructed, cerebral, and engaging mystery novel.
Cutting my teeth on Edgar Allen Poe’s stories in high school led on to writers like Agatha Christie, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and onward to my modern personal favorite, the late P.D. James. I loved the genre so much, I eventually began writing crime fiction myself with my Cameron Ballack Mysteries. I was blessed to have a publisher who believed in my stories and my wheelchair-bound lead detective. Writing mystery stories makes my heart beat faster with more joy. For some time, I wondered why.
At the same time, I also encountered a number of professing Christians who uttered their ambivalence (at best) or disdain (at worst) toward crime fiction. Some of it is so gory, they claimed. Or they would have issue with objectionable language or suggestiveness. Some griped that the setting of detective fiction can be so unyieldingly dark. All true. And I don’t think there’s a need to multiply the objectionable in the name of realism (I don’t know of anyone who says, “Man, I wish there was more cursing in that story!”). If we encounter non-redemptive, vile filth in literature, we redeem the time by giving those types of stories none of our time. But at the same time, Christians shouldn’t ignore this genre, especially when theologians like Sinclair Ferguson or the late J.I. Packer profess their love for mysteries, and especially when mysteries reveal so much of the biblical storyline applied to our human condition.
Huh? What do I mean by that previous sentence?
The reason why Christians should read mysteries is the same reason why I enjoy writing them: They show the pattern of the biblical storyline of creation, ruin, redemption, and restoration. We find ourselves in God’s story that He is writing, and mysteries (indeed great literature in general) reveal this to us.
God created all things good. His creation has the potential to be sorely disfigured, to be sure, but in the beginning, we have the Eden of Genesis, in which tranquility, obedience, and harmony marks the social environment. In a different-yet-connected way, for however long (or little) the detective fiction author wishes to build the world of innocence, a mystery bears this sense of initial quietude and relative virtue. The characters within the story might not get full marks for honor and goodness, but there are no horrific stains yet to the created tale. But before long, as certain as Satan’s query “Has God really said…?”, vices of jealousy, obsession, revenge, or lust drip through the story’s veins. Following this, the antagonist’s criminal actions—be it murder, kidnapping, or some other violation of humanity—ravage the tale’s landscape. In other words, we experience human ruin in the mystery’s pages. Whether it be the first deaths faced by P.D. James’ Adam Dalgliesh, or Adrian McKinty’s Sean Duffy, or Dorothy Sayers’ Peter Wimsey, we readers know the gut-punch feeling of a world derailed and now smeared with death.
All is not lost, however. Although we are lost in our sin, God refuses to turn His back on His creatures, graciously granting the offer of the Christ Redeemer who crushes the serpent’s head (Genesis 3), and we see overtones of this in mystery novels. Enter the drama’s agent of redemption—the protagonist detective, who seeks to make sense of this broken world of death and disfigurement, identifying the means by which the evil of crime might be satisfactorily overturned. The detective-as-redeemer doesn’t need to be a perfect one; we aren’t recreating an exact imprint of Jesus on these pages. Readers are drawn to human deliverers of honest flaws who signal an opportunity that the wrong can be made right. My Cameron Ballack exhibits physical limitations, more clipped grittiness than warmth, and an agnostic streak a mile wide, but his determination and intuition are beloved qualities. Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes displayed evident coldness and drug use while possessing uncanny logic and deduction to solve crimes. The detective, along with his or her team, displays uncanny ability to seek the healing of what is severely broken and wretched.
The final reason why Christians should be drawn to mysteries is that the story’s road leads to restoration. Justice and setting things right happen to be the heartbeats of a well-crafted detective. Such passion is what drives Commander Adam Dalgliesh in P.D. James’ Death in Holy Orders. Not only does he seek he renewal and safety of St. Anselm’s College by discovering who killed Archdeacon Crampton, but Dalgliesh is forced to seek personal restoration, as well. Having tragically lost his wife and infant son years ago, Dalgliesh realizes that he can open his own heart to find love again. And ultimately, seeing a mystery all the way to its restorative end is a real thrill. Yes, we recognize not everything is perfect. Criminal action is a sad part of everyday life. But a mystery novel can unleash pulses of hope that, in the end, good will triumph over evil. Though the bereaved in a story might weep for now, there is coming a day in which God will wipe away all tears in the new heavens and new earth (Revelation 21:1-5). Anguish is temporary; hope is lasting.
So why should we read mysteries?
Because, follower of Jesus, in those stories you can find yourself within the story God is writing on the pages of your life, toward a conclusion more magnificent than we could ever imagine.
Speaking of Mysteries, if you’d like to read Luke’s Cameron Ballack Mysteries you can check out all three of them right here on amazon!
In rural eastern Missouri sits St. Basil’s Seminary, an idyllic center of reflection and study and peace.
But when the sudden, suspicious death of a visiting priest shakes the community to the core, Detective Cameron Ballack is called to investigate the matter.
Facing hardship and tragedy of his own, and confined to a wheelchair, Ballack finds that the seemingly devoted members of St. Basil’s have skeletons in their own closets. And when one murder follows another, Ballack must redouble his efforts to cut through the clouds of past sins before death strikes once more, this time with Ballack in its sights.
