Deeper Water
Deeper Water (Tides of Truth #1)
By: Robert Whitlow
For some reason I own this book so I figured I should probably read it.
I appreciate a good, clean legal thriller, but this was just... not real enjoyable. Randy Singer is a way better 'Christian equivalent' to John Grisham.
Be warned: you will read over 150 pages before any semblance of a court case. You spend the first half of the book witnessing the main character's unauthentic, legalistic and self-righteous lifestyle and personality. I very nearly quit several times but I had thought based on some reviews that the book was more a study in character development and that he was setting the foundation of a character to showcase how far she comes by the end. Well. That didn't happen. I suppose because it's a series the author intends to progress, but I'm not going to wade through hundreds of pages of monotony to see a sliver of character change.
Honestly, if you are not a Christian, please don't read this book. I can only imagine what you will come away feeling about followers of Christ. I totally understand the variety of convictions people have regarding their faith, and I am not advocating that everything Tami was about was wrong. But the way she viewed people and treated people was painful to read and not what you would find preached in most evangelical churches. I think the only two people outside her family that she felt were worthy of compassion were the two elderly characters and even one of those she was afraid of for most of the book.
Fast forward to the actual court case part of the story and the pace picks up a bit and is more engaging. The potential for solving a cold case that links several of the characters together is intriguing. Until at the point of climax, it just kind of 'goes away.' There's no real bad guys after all and it's just back to being a tragic story we'll never know about. Woo hoo.
One further irritation: Two of Tami's colleagues are interested in her and she is oscillating between which one is *basically* godly enough for her. And we get to the end where she is going to tell her parents which one she is bringing home. And yup, you guessed it. Didn't happen. [Spoiler alert: based on the book summaries for the next 2 in this series- she STILL has not decided. Chew on that before you head to book 2]
So much work for NO payoff. It's like the author purposely wrote this book with the mantra 'How can I tone this way down in conflict and way up in religiosity?' Wasted my time.
I'm probably not going to own it anymore.