Never off the clock
Christians from G. K. Chesterton to P. D. James have noted the implicit theology of the murder mystery. When humanity is desecrated through the wrongful taking of life, blood always cries out from the ground. And every murder mystery requires a murderer—a violator of divine and human law—who must be caught. The fact that murder mysteries are not much like murder cases in our justice systems is beside the point. The bigger point remains: we live in a moral universe where justice will prevail—whether now or in the Judgment.
This fundamentally moral and theological premise is the unstated center of Wallander, an excellent murder mystery series from the BBC that is set in Sweden and based on a popular series of novels by Henning Mankell. Three seasons are available on Netflix, while the fourth and final season is in production. The great Kenneth Branagh is both producer and lead actor. He plays inspector Kurt Wallander, who solves one serial killing case after another. Wallander is a cop so devoted to his calling that his family life suffers. He sleeps in fits and starts in a chair with a bottle of wine by his side. He notices every detail about a crime scene but can’t be bothered to notice when a loved one is suffering. He is always on the edge of collapse. The danger is not that he’ll torture or kill a suspect as in American cop shows; it’s that his own life is always within an inch of flying apart. Relentless pursuit of justice proves to be a demanding idol.
Wallander knows he should leave work at the office. A series of broken relationships shows this to be true. But he cannot. When he is on a murder case, he tenaciously pursues someone out there who could kill again. Colleagues call with new information, and Wallander speeds off to a new crime scene or new suspect. There is no questioning this. Even those left behind in his dust understand why it must be so.
