Morality and crime fiction

David Masciotra asks "Where's the Faith in Fiction?" and answers:

.... The case for faith in fiction is to be made by those who deal with cracking cases for a living—the fictional detectives, private investigators, and troubled protagonists who inhabit the scandalous, seductive, and serpentine setting of noir.

Crime fiction weaves its tale in the threshold between right and wrong, just and unjust, good and evil. It is because of its naked confrontation with philosophy and ethics, and its depiction of drifters, confidence men, femme fatales, petty criminals, serial killers, and agents of the law beset by iniquity and caught in the web of moral turpitude, that it is so effectively and naturally able to deal with doubt, faith, and the inner combat of spiritual warfare. ....

Crime and noir have always told the story of people who decide to cross an invisible but palpable moral line. It then measures the wreckage—physical, emotional, and spiritual—that results from the voluntary crossing over into another ethical universe—a colder, tougher, and uglier universe. These same questions haunt the tales of the Bible and the lives of the saints. ....

His examples are contemporary crime novelists — two of whom I've read and enjoyed.

Via Brandywine Books

Where’s the Faith in Fiction? Try Crime Novels - The Daily Beast