Deeper Water, by Robert Whitlow

Robert Whitlow writes enjoyable legal fiction which features Christian characters and themes.  His Tides of Truth series follows budding lawyer Tammy Lynn Taylor through twists and turns of entering the profession of law and finding love.  In Deeper Water, book one of the Tides of Truth series, Tami (She shortens her name to sound more professional and less like a "hillbilly.") accepts an internship at a law firm in Savannah, Georgia.  She has completed two years of law school and knows this summer internship might be an opportunity to secure permanent employment after she graduates.

Tami's faith is solid as a rock.  We meet her family, who live in a small, north Georgia town with a tight-knit church and strict rules of living the Christian life.  They aren't Amish, but many of their practices almost sound like they could be.  Away from home, she faces many questions about her conservative dress, her Sabbath practices, and, especially, her propriety around men.  The one thing that seemed terribly strange was her deference to her parents.  She is presumably in her mid-twenties, two years out of college, and she still seeks her parents input on many decisions that most adults would not imagine asking their parents about.  Nevertheless, any parent would be pleased by the careful way she deals with two men who show interest in her, one lawyer and one fellow intern.  This love triangle adds some tension around the office, but is left unresolved in this book.

Tami becomes connected to life in Savannah, as she moves in for the summer with an elderly widow who is a fixture in town.  Her landlady's stories end up intersecting with a case she is assigned, defending an elderly man charged with trespassing.  He lives in the woods but ties up his boat to private docks on the river each night while he sleeps.  This ostensibly simple case leads Tami to investigating the decades-old disappearance of a little girl, the daughter of a prominent family.  She doesn't know who she can trust as signs of a malevolent conspiracy emerge.

If I didn't know this book was written by Robert Whitlow, I would have imagined the author as a woman, as Tami's faith and love life are the focus of the book.  I enjoyed the story, and, even though Tami and her family were so conservative as to be almost unbearable, I did appreciate the centrality of their faith to their lives.  I look forward to reading book 2!