WINDSOR TERRACE — During a lengthy career in the insurance industry, Philip Lehpamer used his actuary skills to research and report mortality data to carriers so they could set their rates. In retirement, he created a fictional character who uses those same skills to fight crime. 

Meet Parker Spooner, an actuary with a private detective side hustle in Lehpamer’s new novel “Unwavering Love.”

Lehpamer, 82, is a parishioner and volunteer at Holy Name of Jesus Roman Catholic Church in Windsor Terrace. He is a longtime worker in the church’s food pantry and serves on the parish’s finance council. Lehpamer grew up and spent his early adulthood years in Chicago, where the novel takes place. 

There, during the 1970s, Spooner and his wife are busy raising four children as he investigates two murders. While uncovering the violent details of the crimes, the private eye strives to be a leader for his family. While Spooner relies on his mathematical skills to solve mysteries, Lehpamer said his goal was to create a character with spiritual depth.  

“I wanted to reflect Catholicism,” Lehpamer told The Tablet. “I wanted to show that a detective also had a religious side, and in the case of my fictional character, Parker Spooner, his wife, and the children — they’re very definitely a prayerful family.”

Lehpamer said he was baptized Catholic, although his family was not fervently religious. He attended public high school but experienced spiritual renewal in the early 1960s as a student at the University of Chicago.

“There was a very significant movement toward the Catholic Church, and I was part of that group,” Lehpamer said. “It was there that I received my first confession and received the Holy Spirit during confirmation.”

As a student, Lehpamer loved English and mathematics. He said he was better at math but still wrote short stories — usually about detectives — that he submitted to “Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine” and “Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine.”

“Absolutely none of them were accepted,” he said with a chuckle. “Total rejection.”

In 1977, Lehpamer and his wife settled in Windsor Terrace, where he worked as an actuary and became a member of Holy Name of Jesus Parish.

Surprisingly, his work in mathematics kept him active as a writer. Lehpamer said he penned routine actuarial reports, as well as articles accepted in professional journals for actuaries. One was a study on the mortality rates of Hollywood actresses and actors, he said. 

“The actuary is the mathematician of the insurance companies, but part of that mathematics is to measure mortality,” Lehpamer said, adding that the data they gather is then crunched to determine the rates for competitive policies while covering an insurance company’s expenses.

“And then you have to write about that,” Lehpamer said. “You have to be able to express technical terms. There’s a coherent writing process in that formulation, so an actuary has to be a good writer.”

Lehpamer said he had never thought of writing a crime novel until he retired and was looking for something to do during the pandemic.

“Everything was shut down,” he recalled. “So, I said, ‘Let me take one of my short stories from back in the 1960s, one that I know is a good story.’ So, I took that 6,000-word short story, and it became 60,000 words.”

He showed it to other writers and got feedback before restructuring it. Ultimately, it came out to about 80,000 words, and the publishing company Boulevard Books agreed to publish it. “Unwavering Love” arrived on bookshelves in August. 

Lehpamer urged unpublished writers not to give up.

“Keep writing,” he said. “Share pieces of your writing with someone who might be able to give you constructive criticism. A lot of the advice that I got was spot on.

“If you have a dream, you have to keep pursuing it.”