What is Christian Noir?

It’s been almost a year since I posted here. I got busy, and the subject I’d meant to write about didn’t stir my passions enough to draw me back. So, the other day I changed the concept and title to something that started my mind churning when my novel The Do-Re-Mi got called “the first hardboiled Christian mystery.”

The whole story of this blog and its title goes back some years, to when I sent a manuscript to a Christian agent, and got the following reply. “I’d be happy to represent you and I would try to sell this book, but I don’t think I can. It’s too Christian for the secular market and has too much sex for the Christian market.”

I said, “Huh? There’s no sex in it.”

He said, “The character thinks about sex.”

I said, “But what he thinks isn’t very graphic, and besides, Christians I know think about sex a lot.”

He said, “Not in Christian books, they don’t.”

So, I have wondered for years, where does somebody publish books that present Christian characters like the ones I know, who can be delusional, tormented, misguided, doubtful, horny, and sometimes even downright wicked.

If anyone can send me an answer to that, please do.