Some British intellectuals were attempting to restore shaken public faith that good could defeat evil. Sayers, Chesterton and other masters of detective fiction truly believed that the great mysteries of their troubled age “were solvable,” said [Lesley-Anne] Williams in one of her lectures.
“I don’t think that we’re in a golden age of mystery now. I think part of that is, you have to have a belief that there is a truth that can be known,” she said. Thus, a yearning for absolutes could be “one of the reasons why people like mystery novels. They are kind of self-contained. You can trust the author to do certain things. … There is justice here and you have to have a belief in justice, you have to have a belief in truth to do that kind of mystery.”
In a 1957 eulogy for Sayers, Lewis stressed that his friend didn’t want to preach. She was striving to communicate clearly to a broader audience.
“There is in reality no cleavage between the detective stories and her other works,” wrote Lewis. “In them, as in it, she is first and foremost the craftsman, the professional. She always saw herself as one who has learned a trade, and respects it, and demands respect for it from others. We who loved her may (among ourselves) largely admit that this attitude was sometimes almost comically emphatic. …
(OPINION/@tweetmattingly) Dorothy Sayers’ Christian faith: Murder mysteries, theology and classical ed. As president of the Detection Club, Sayers led initiation rites featuring ceremonial garb, flickering candles and a human skull.https://t.co/noBpxX4yAP
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