This week on Uncommon Knowledge, the novelist and screenwriter Andrew Klavan. An atheist and a liberal not so very long ago, Klavan is now a believer and a conservative — and he has chosen to place his new convictions smack in the middle of his work. Just take a look at his new novel, Empire of Lies. From the dust jacket:

Sustained by a deep religious faith, Jason Harrow has built a stable family and become a pillar of principle and patriotistm in the Midwest. Then the phone rings, and his past is on the other end of the line….Returning to New York City, Jason finds himself entangled in a murderous conspiracy only he can see and only he can stop.

But even if your hero had been completely secular, I tell Klavan in today’s segment, the plot would have had just as many twists and the climactic scene would have proven just as thrilling. Why did you have to make your hero into a Christian?

Frank, provocative, and thoroughly delightful, Andrew Klavan replies.