As I usually do, I’m sharing books I am reading or can recommend. I have read two books halfway through, one I’m stillworking on, but I think it’s fascinating and thought-provoking.

I don’t need to explain the late P.D. James.

For my money, her Adam Dalgliesh series is the best to come out of Great Britain in many years. She is (was) the most intelligent contemporary mystery writer, and Dalgliesh, a self-taught poet, is the most intelligent detective.

Her plots are rich and surprising, but she never overdoes it.

I finished Murder Room, a great  Dalgliesh story—a terrific mystery.

Colson Whitehead has published his second series starring Ray Carney, a Harlem furniture salesman and (kind of) retired stolen goods fence. He thinks he’s retired from the criminal world this time but is upended by outspoken teenage daughter May demanding tickets to the Jackson 5 (this is in the 70s). His effort to please her pulls him reluctantly back into the criminal world.

His New York City 70’s backdrop is a masterpiece of scene-setting; Carney is one of the best new characters to come out of this genre in a while. The stuff about Harlem and New  York City is lovely. Carney is an equal parts businessman, family man, thief, and warrior.

Whitehead wrote The Nickel Boys and The Underground Railroad, both excellent and award-winning. The Ray Carner series is a new track for him, and he has produced another terrific book.

This author can’t seem to write a bad one; may he live forever.

The third book, Timothy Keller’s Making Sense of Good, is challenging and surprising. It isn’t a religious book, per se, and he isn’t trying to convert anyone. He explores why God is vital to people and why so many people cling to the idea of a God above us deciding our fates.

He also writes that God helps people face death and find hope in a battered world.

My friend Ron, an Evangelical Christian, gave me the book to help me understand his great faith, and it is prodding me to think and reflect on the whole idea of God and why it makes sense to people.

I’ve never been able to jump aboard the God train, but it was a great gift and I much enjoy reading about it.  It’s a gripping topic.

It’s got me thinking every time I pick it up.  And I am hearing things I didn’t know (like Christianity was the faith that invented democracy.)

I’ve wondered for years why so many Christians seem to know nothing about Christianity or live by its principles. The book is helping me understand. It also reminds me that the worship of God has often led to good.

Keller writes with a light hand on an exciting subject. I recommend it to people who are spirituality inclined but secular. Long-time God lovers don’t need it.