You could say there's not a lot of suspense in Christian suspense. In the battle between good and evil, good always wins; if there is violence, the worst happens off-page; and if the main character is a woman, she'll wind up with the right guy in the end. But publishers say one important thing has changed—in today's Christian suspense, plot drives the story and the Christian message takes a backseat.

“It used to be the story needed to be high in redemptive elements and the characters needed to understand God in a better way,” says Shannon Hill, WaterBrook's senior fiction editor. “Now, if the reader thinks about those things, that's great, but the primary point of the story is to entertain.” Publishers thank authors like Ted Dekker and Frank Peretti for paving the way for newer—and ever scarier—ways of storytelling. “Twenty years ago, Dekker might never have been published by a Christian publisher,” says Kregel publisher Dennis Hillman. “It would have been considered too edgy, too much raw imagery. But that has become the accepted norm. It means the Christian market is willing to address the issues people confront every day.”

Angels and Demons No More?

This new norm includes books that sometimes have no supernatural element at all, including crime dramas, medical thrillers and police procedurals. “You are getting away from angels and demons to a more ABA kind of suspense,” says David Long, fiction acquisitions editor at Bethany House. “Publishers are willing to take more risks to tell ABA-style mysteries and thrillers rooted in murders and reality——more human-against-human conflict.” Bethany House's lineup reflects this in Wind River (July) by Tom Morrisey (profiled in this issue), about a back-country expedition that turns deadly; B&H Publishing has Forsaken by James D. Jordan (Oct.), about a televangelist who receives threats from radical Islamists.

Still, supernatural spiritual warfare continues to hold some sway with both readers and publishers, Long acknowledges. Bethany's The Warriors by Mark Andrew Olsen (April) continues the end-times saga begun in The Watchers (April, paper), and Merciless by Robin Parrish (July) is the third installment in his creepy-crawly Dominion series. Thomas Nelson's The Unseen by T.L. Hines (Sept.) also features an otherworldly evil.

The new primacy of story has pulled Hachette imprint FaithWords seriously into the category for the first time. “In the past, the first question I asked an author was, what is your Christian theme,” says editor Anne Horch. “Now I have the freedom to look for the stories that move me.” FaithWords is doing a “full court press” in suspense, Horch says, beginning with Isolation (Sept.) by Travis Thrasher (InProfile, p. 10), about a missionary family trapped by a supernatural killer, which will be followed by Thrasher's Ghostwriter in May 2009.

At WaterBrook, Hill also says the genre is growing, especially what she calls “visionary suspense”—futuristic stories that are light on science but heavy on scary. In May, WaterBrook releases Broken Angel by Sigmund Brouwer, about a futuristic society of fundamentalists who reject anything in conflict with their religious views. Hill hopes visionary suspense can cross over from the Christian to the mainstream market. “There is an imaginative element that people want to explore,” she says. “The world around us has all these scary things [such as terrorism and global warming], and we do not know how they are going to turn out. We believe God will resolve them, but people of other faith systems or no faith systems want to know that things are going to come out okay, too.”

More Women Authors—and Readers

Some publishers say more women are venturing beyond romantic suspense and into more hardcore suspense, writing and reading books about women involved in solving murders, investigating organized crime and hunting down killers. “In the CBA market we are seeing more freedom to explore genres, and readers and authors are catching up quickly with their BEA counterparts,” says Dudley Delffs, v-p of trade books at Zondervan. “Our readers are not shopping only in CBA channels, yet they want the faith element in their storytelling, so they are more receptive to having suspense from their favorite women Christian authors.” They'll find it in Dark Pursuit by Brandilyn Collins (Zondervan, Dec.), Unpretty by Sharon Carter Rogers (Howard Books, Sept.), and Rules of Engagement by Kristen Heitzmann (WaterBrook, spring 2009).

And look for more female protagonists with little or no romantic elements in their stories. One such novel is Conspiracy in Kiev by Noel Hynd (Zondervan, Oct.), which features Alexandra Deluca, a kind of Jason Bourne character involved in what Delffs calls “seat belt suspense.” Kregel's Hillman says their success with Jeanette Windle's Firestorm, about a woman who takes on the Central American drug cartels, brought them more strongly into the genre. “She is really a female Tom Clancy,” he says. Now, they are branching out with Blood Brothers by Rick Acker (June), about brothers who own a pharmaceutical company that is under attack. Thomas Nelson kicks off a new legal thriller series starring a female law student in Deeper Water by Robert Whitlow (June).

But while more women authors and protagonists may be driving straight suspense, women's romantic suspense remains a pillar of the genre. New from Steeple Hill are Thread of Deceit by Catherine Palmer (May), Wiser than Serpents by Susan May Warren (June) and six new titles in its Reunion Revelations series that launched in January. Bethany House offers The Edge of Recall by Kristen Heitzmann (July), and Revell has Kill Me if You Can by Nicole Young (April) and A Steal of a Deal by Ginny Aiken (April). Jennifer Leep, acquisitions editor for Revell, says women's romantic suspense may see further niche-ing, as authors like Young and Aiken set their series against specific backdrops—home renovation and shopping networks, respectively. “They are offshoots of the suspense category,” she says. “They cross suspense with a chick-lit feel.” Revell is moving into straight suspense too, with The Rook by Steven James (Aug.; see review on p. 9). Sales of James's The Pawn (2007), the first in this series, were among the strongest Revell has ever seen for a first novel, Leep says—another indication that story drives sales. “There is not a lot of overt Christian message in the book,” she says. “It is just a race to catch the bad guy, with spiritual themes that are part of the subtext for anyone who wants to pull them out.”

Tyndale has a long history with Christian suspense, most notably with the Left Behind series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins. Its success—65 million copies to date—opened many doors for the publisher, both in the marketplace and in relationships with new authors. Each year, Tyndale publishes the winner of Jenkins's Christian Writers Guild Award for a debut novel, and it will launch winner and first-time author Tom Pawlik's spiritual warfare novel, Vanish, in July. “Left Behind really opened doors to the suspense category,” says Karen Watson, senior fiction acquisitions editor. “It also gave us the ability to explore other kinds of books.” Indeed, this season, Tyndale will continue its fruitful relationship with Jenkins with Riven (July), while it also offers its first legal thriller, By Reason of Insanity by Randy Singer (May). Also new for Tyndale is Monday Night Jihad, a spy thriller by pro-footballer Jason Elam and Steve Yohn (Jan.), the first in the new Riley Covington thriller series; it has already sold more than 30,000 copies. In July, Susan May Warren completes her romantic suspense trilogy with Finding Stephanie.

At Harvest House, dedication to story has meant suspense has focused more on series than stand-alone titles. “We like to keep things going and follow through with a theme over a number of titles,” says David Constance, v-p of sales. “It's like the next episode—the reader wants to know how the lives of the characters evolve.” New from Harvest House is Brittan (Aug.), the third in the Debutantes series by Debra White Smith, featuring a group of crime-solving debutantes and their romantic liaisons. But Harvest House also has seen success with single titles, most recently with Whispers of the Bayou by Mindy Starns Clark (Jan.), which Constance reports is doing well in both the ABA and CBA markets. Still, he says historical fiction is the main driver at Harvest House, while suspense “is kind of happening on the side with varying degrees of success,” adding, “we would love to see it grow.”

New Responsibilities

While publishers are excited about the new freedom the suspense category is enjoying, it also presents a challenge. How do you balance a mission-driven business with books in a genre driven by evil, violence and the supernatural? “It's hard to work in the saving message of Jesus in a chase scene,” says Bethany House's Long. “These kinds of plots don't lend themselves to stopping and evangelizing.” So publishers have to find other ways to make sure the message comes through. FaithWords' Horch says the burden is on the publisher. “I can see the stories getting pretty edgy, and that's where I am going to be very discerning. There is more room for mistakes. But suspense is actually a genre that can put the Gospel out there really blatantly. What other genre deals with good and evil in a very obvious way? This is an opportunity to let God shine.”