Too nice for vice?

Interview | Hard-boiled mystery writer Andrew Klavan on becoming a Christian and “seeing the world more clearly as it is” | Marvin Olasky

Andrew Klavan is an unusual combination: He writes detective novels filled with depictions of human depravity, and he's now a Christian. It shouldn't be an unusual combination, because an understanding of man's sinfulness, along with a glimpse of God's holiness, often makes us realize our desperate need for Christ. And yet Christian fiction has a reputation for being too nice to take on vice.

Klavan has written 10 novels, two of which have been made into movies: True Crime, directed by and starring Clint Eastwood, and Don't Say a Word, with Michael Douglas. Klavan, a former reporter who has lived on the East Coast and in London but now lives in California, has twice won an Edgar (named after Edgar Allen Poe) for top mystery writing. On his website, andrewklavan.com, he wrote last year, "I became a Christian after some 35 years of thinking and reading everything I could get my hands on from Augustine to Zoroaster."