‘What will you do with your time when you have finished your doctorate?’ asked my colleague.

‘Study more,’ I said, ‘or spend my life watching detective programmes and reading every Maigret novel,’

‘What is it about clergy and detective fiction? My uncle was a priest in a missionary order and I once asked him if I could buy him some books as a gift.  I thought he woukd want some theology or spirituality books but he asked me for detective novels. ‘It seemed odd.’

‘Perhaps it’s not so strange,’ I said, ‘ the crime writers explore human nature and clergy are meant to understand people. Sometimes I think the novelists are better at the job.’

Watching an episode of Midsomer Murders from the days when John Nettles played Inspector Tom Barnaby, there was a moment when the writer wrote the story in a way that a person might have behaved.

Struggling with the murderer who carried a curved bladed knife, Barnaby’s daughter Cully seemed defenceless. It seemed one of those silly moments from the days of black and white films where a woman succumbs to the violence of an aggressor without offering resistance.

Then came the moment of realism, the woman from the house Cully had visited appeared around the corner and swiped the aggressor across the back of the head with an empty wine bottle leaving Cully’s assailant lying unconscious on the ground.

Of course, given the bizarre nature of the law in these islands, Cully’s defender would have faced an assault charge. The injured defender would have found a solicitor to pursue a personal claim for damages.

But the skill of the writer was not in understanding the world of compensation claims but in understanding how ordinary people would feel about situations.

My colleague’s uncle had worked in countries in Africa. As a missionary priest his ministry had been among the poorest. It would have been a daily encounter with the effects of corruption and injustice. There wouldn’t have been many moments when there was a sense of satisfaction that the villain had been laid out by a swift blow to the back of the head.

Maigret is a detective from a bygone time. Maigret’s villains don’t escape the consequences of their crimes. Maigret’s villains can’t hide behind a legal system that favours assailants over victims. When someone falls off their chair in Inspector Janvier’s office, there is a sense of contentment at the outcome.

Perhaps detective novels offer the sort of just world of which clergy can only dream.