Mystery women; three clergy heroines

Christian Century, Oct 19, 2004 by Betty Smartt Carter

Crooked Heart. By Cristina Sumners, Bantam, 336 pp., $6.99 paperback.

The Book of Light. By Michelle Blake. Prime rime, 304 pp., $6.99 paperback.

Out of the Deep I Cry. By Julia Spencer-Fleming. St. Martin Minotaur, 304 pp., $24.95.

IN THE SHADOWY world of the mystery novel, nothing is ever quite what it appears to be, including the nature of justice itself. The justice on the surface of detective stories is earth-bound and human-centered. Fictional detectives mimic real-world investigators: their primary tools are science and psychology, not prayer or heavenly visions. You won't find Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot conducting trials by ordeal, or P. D. James's Adam Dalgliesh making suspects walk over hot coals to prove their innocence. Yet beneath the surface of every mystery lies a powerful, sustaining faith: that perfect justice is nut only possible but inevitable. Truth and righteousness ultimately will prevail.

Most Popular Articles in Reference: The importance of understanding organizational culture; Credit card attitudes and behaviors of college students; What factors attract foreign direct investment?; Libraries Need Relationship Marketing - mutual interest marketing concept, ...; How to set performance goals: employee reviews are more than annual critiques; More »

Even if we know that justice is far from inevitable here on earth, we are willing to suspend that knowledge when we read mysteries. In the real world we hope, but sometimes doubt, that good will triumph over evil. A mystery novel offers us a glimpse of the fulfillment of that hope: in the context of a story we observe the convergence of human and divine justice. A fictional detective becomes our appointed prophet-priest: through special knowledge, she deciphers the handwriting on the wall (or in the ransom note) and finds meaning in texts--perhaps telephone records. At the end of each story her conclusions are affirmed: the criminal confesses, or leaps from a bridge or drops a smoking gun.

Think of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes seeking enlightenment in an opium trance; of Dorothy Sayers's Lord Peter Wimsey meditating on a folio of Dante; or Agatha Christie's quiet Miss Marple hearing confessions at the tea table. These are priestly, sometimes monkish figures: brilliant eccentrics with the power to summon logic in the face of chaos. Lacking badges, side arms or fast cars, they fight crime by drawing on invisible fountains of intuition--what Poirot calls his "little grey cells," but what seem more like Delphic vapors. What is intuition but spiritual discernment, the prophetic gift?

Recently, three outstanding crime novelists have turned directly to the church for inspiration, presenting amateur detectives who are, in vocation as well as in spirit, priests. (Not that clergy have never before been portrayed as detectives--think of G. K. Chesterton's humble Father Brown, Ellis Peters's canny Brother Cadfael, or Brother William of Baskerville in Umberto Eco's marvelous The Name of the Rose.) The three priests in these new series have two things in common: they're all women, and they're all in love with their collaborators--who happen to be policemen. (And these priests, like the authors, are also all Episcopalians.)

In Crooked Heart, a first novel by Cristina Sumners (herself a parish priest), we meet Kathryn Koerney, rector of a small church in a New Jersey college town that resembles Princeton. Kathryn is a Lord Peter fan and shares some of that great detective's idiosyncrasies, including a cozy private fortune and a Bunterlike servant ("Warby") whom she treats as a friend rather than an employee. Kathryn's partner in crime-solving and, eventually, romance is Tom Holden, a policeman who happens to serve on her vestry.

The attraction is uneven at first. Tom, stuck in a bad marriage (to a daytime TV addict), quickly falls for his winsome new priest; but Kathryn finds Tom "as sexy as Donald Duck." It takes the strange disappearance and possible murder of a local woman to bring this unlikely pair together. As they uncover the facts of the crime and explore the dark mysteries of human nature, Tom and Kathryn feel a growing mutual respect, accompanied by the powerful stirrings of love. They're flirting with danger; and they know it. When the mystery is solved, they walk off into the mist together--not to consummate their relationship, but to share a private Eucharist and a moment of spiritual reflection.

Michelle Blake's The Book of Light, while less ecclesiastical in tone, presents more inherently religious themes. Lily Connor is the cowboy-boots-wearing chaplain at Boston's Tate University (the author teaches at Tufts). One day Lily receives a visit from an old acquaintance, Samantha Lamb-Henderson, a well-known biblical scholar. Samantha has a big secret: an anonymous correspondent has informed her of the actual existence of Q the hypothetical source for material in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. Has the church deliberately hidden Q for 2,000 years, and, if so, why?

The ensuing intrigue involves guns, safe deposit boxes and mysterious deaths. The similarities to The DaVinci Code are obvious, though perhaps coincidental. Like the scholarly heroes of Dan Brown's novel, Lily and her policeman lover (another Tom) face a secret society determined to maintain its hold on ecclesiastical power, no matter how many commandments it has to break to do so. While The DaVinci Code makes female sexuality the answer to nearly every riddle, The Book of Light gives us something less sensational and less predictable--a female mind. Lily's preoccupations are moral and intellectual rather than erotic: she wants to know bow to live--especially how to coexist with Christians on different sides of the theological spectrum. After she views the text of the sacred manuscript, she begins to experience miraculous changes in her own heart. For the first time she's able to find patience and even sympathy for a conservative believer who shows up at her door.

Featured Download

Speak Like a CEO

Mystery women; three clergy heroines

Christian Century, Oct 19, 2004 by Betty Smartt Carter

Find Research Guides for:

Find Featured Titles for: Arts

Most Popular Articles in Reference

Most Popular Publications in Reference