No one ever asks how my faith influences my work.
It’s the quiet truth behind everything I write, everything I teach, everything I create.
I think most people assume faith and crime writing are at odds. Like they can’t possibly live in the same space. Maybe they imagine faith as tidy, clean, and gentle… and crime fiction as gritty, brutal, and dark. But here’s what I know to be true:
Darkness without redemption is pure evil. And we are not made for darkness. We are made for light.
For me, faith doesn’t sit behind the scenes of my process. It is the framework.
Whether I’m hiking the red rocks for inspiration, drafting a chilling autopsy scene, or meeting readers at a local library event, my mission is always the same: to remind people that even in the darkest recesses of the human experience, there is always a place for hope and light. There is no place or person in this world that is unredeemable. Yes, even serial killers, rapists, and mass murderers. Wrestle with that and you’ll tell stories for a lifetime.
Why I Write Crime
My faith and my love for crime stories started early. I grew up in a small Michigan town, the daughter of a medical examiner. It wasn’t morbid. It was human. Sacred. Purposeful. My parents had great faith and they shared it with us. They encouraged us to find our own relationships with God. We learned this through how they placed value, worth, and dignity on human life. We learned the importance of a relationship with God because of how fleeting life can be for some.
So, when I started writing fiction, it was never just about the thrill. I wanted to tell stories that explored the deeper and darker aspects of the human experience. Crime fiction gave me a place to ask life’s biggest questions.
What happens after tragedy. How people carry pain. How communities respond. How justice is pursued, imperfectly, relentlessly. What do we do with suffering. What do we owe the dead? How do we honor the living? How do we honor each other? Why are we of infinite value to one another and what should we do with that? How do we honor the dignity of a human person despite their mistakes or evilness? What does redemption look like in the real world?
These are questions that test and develop one’s faith.
Faith as My Framework
Faith, for me, is about a trusting relationship with God in the face of life’s inconsistencies, mysteries, and uncertainties.
When I write, I enter into a kind of prayer, not a formal kneeling-by-the-bed sort of thing, but a communion, a reaching, a listening. I show up to the page with my own questions, my own doubts, my own longings and I try to open myself up. I trust the Holy Spirit to meet me there and speak.
Faith shows up in the quietest ways:
- When I’m staring at a blank page and whisper, “What next?”
- When I revise a tough scene and pray I’m doing justice to a real-life victim’s story.
- When I don’t know the ending, I trust it will come.
That’s faith. It’s trusting in what you can’t yet see. It’s writing toward the light, even when you’re standing in the dark.
I don’t always get it right. I wrestle with doubt, like everyone does. But I also believe that art is one of the clearest ways we experience the divine.
Darkness, Redemption, and Hope
Every piece I write, from an article to a screenplay to a novel, is a spiritual journey because my work is a prayer. There is no separation between the sacred and the secular. God is in it all. God has something to show me, and to show you, in the work.
In What Darkness Does, Dr. Emily Hartford is searching for a missing infant while investigating a young mother’s murder. That story was inspired by a real-life case, one that broke my heart and started those questions… why must some suffer so much? Why are some so evil? Where is the redemption in this story? Is there hope and light?
That’s the heartbeat of a faith journey in storytelling.
Redemption doesn’t mean everything is tied up with a neat bow. Healing comes through heartbreak. Justice is often incomplete. Case in point, in the true crime story or Rachel Timmerman that inspired What Darkness Does, her baby daughter, Savannah, has never been found to this day.
That’s a hard pill to swallow.
In my fiction, I try to find and insert points of grace into the story and character’s lives. Uncovering a breakthrough in the case is a point of grace. Stopping a killer is a point of grace. Realizing one’s limitations and asking for help is a point of grace. Finding a live, infant baby is a point of grace.
I try to make my books more than just thrill rides, but also explorations of the human soul. Of what happens when people are pushed to their limits. Of how we respond to tragedy and suffering, with compassion, with resilience, with courage.
I want readers to feel that. Even as we’re going through some darkness, I want them to feel the catharsis of light and hope.
Faith in the Field
Over the years, I’ve met thousands of readers and hundreds of writers, at conferences, libraries, bookstores, and online. And some of the most meaningful conversations weren’t about plot twists or favorite characters.
They were about faith.
I remember one woman who came to one of my book signings and told me that my book helped her get through the sudden death of her husband. She didn’t share the details of how and I didn’t need to know. My work had given her a lift when she most needed it.
I don’t write with an agenda. But I do write with intention. And when my work makes someone feel seen, or safe, or encouraged, or stirred to do good, that is everything.
Faith shows up in the field, too:
In the forensic scientists who pursue answers despite long odds.
In the police officers who carry the weight of unsolved cases, day after day.
In the coroners who treat every body with dignity.
In the families who wait, who grieve, who cling to hope even when answers come slowly.
There is holiness in the hunt for justice and an investigation done well. There is sacredness in every small act of courage along the way.
What I Believe About Darkness
I’ve stared into some dark corners of the human experience. And I’m sure you have, too. I mean, all you have to do is take a look at the Holocaust and you’ll know the depth of human depravity. So many books and movies have been told about this horror, but they don’t leave us there. They focus on the stories of hope, survival, and love in the midst of the mire.
I’ve read case files that made me sick for humanity. I’ve studied real life killers whose rap sheets make me shiver. I’ve had experiences in my own life that shake me to the core and make me question the goodness of God.
But here’s what I know: The darkness is never the end of the story. There is always more being offered to us. More hope. More love. More truth. More grace. Second chances. Miracles of survival and rescue.
Faith teaches me that. It reminds me that despair is never final, even when it feels crushing. I’ve seen families broken by tragedy find ways to heal. I’ve seen communities rise up to honor victims when justice felt out of reach. Even in the ugliest chapters, there’s always a thread of resilience waiting to be uncovered.
And because of that, I can write about the hardest things, murder, abuse, loss, without losing hope. Because I know the light is real.
The Question I Wish People Asked
I wish people asked me how my faith influences my work.
Because then I could say this:
It influences everything.
Not just in what I write, but in how I write. In how I live. In what I want for my readers. In how I show up at events. In how I manage deadlines. In how I handle disappointment and rejection. In how I handle my own relationships.
Faith is not a side note or something I just do at church. It’s the through line.
If you’ve ever read one of my books and felt something stir in your soul, that was no accident. That was faith doing its quiet work. And I can only credit the Holy Spirit for that.
A Thread of Hope
At the end of the day, what I want most is for my readers to walk away with something they didn’t expect, but that they desperately needed in that moment.
Maybe it’s a new perspective that refreshes. Maybe it’s the feeling of being understood. Maybe it’s the whisper of ‘this too shall pass”. Maybe it’s an inkling of courage to keep going.
That’s what faith does. It keeps us tethered to something deeper. Something bigger and stronger that we could be on our own. It’s something true and real.
So no, faith and crime writing are not at odds. They are partners in the work of telling the truth. They are allies in the fight for redemption. They are co-authors in the story of light overcoming darkness.
And I’ll keep writing that story as long as I’m able.
