Novelist as Christian

Andrew Klavan produces his first book “as a baptized man” | Marvin Olasky

Veredith W. Walter

Andrew Klavan is a hard-boiled detective novelist worth watching. As I noted in a review/interview 19 months ago (WORLD, Feb. 10, 2007), he has received two Edgars (named after Edgar Allen Poe) for top mystery-writing; his novels have been made into movies starring Clint Eastwood and Michael Douglas; and he is now a Christian. Conversion has been a long and gradual process: "I became a Christian after some 35 years of thinking and reading everything I could get my hands on from Augustine to Zoroaster."

Our interview early in 2007 ended with Klavan's announcement of coming attractions: "I'm writing a book now—the first novel I've written from beginning to end as a baptized man—and it's so different from anything I've ever done and yet so completely and naturally the product of my personal vision that I can only watch it unfold with a sort of helpless fascination."