Water's Edge

Christy Award%E2%80%93winning Whitlow (Greater Love) is a lawyer who knows his profession, as his newest legal thriller shows. Tom Crane is a hotshot young Atlanta lawyer who thinks he's about to become partner. Instead he gets pink-slipped, and dumped by his girlfriend, giving him lots of time to close out the smalltown law practice of his late father, who died in a boating accident. Circumstances slowly suggest that his father's death was not an accident; a second man who died in the boating accident has a beautiful daughter interested in the truth behind her father's death, and she's also an evangelical Christian. Characterizations are plausible, the mystery develops at a good pace, and the villain's a surprise. The Christian elements are heavy but not sappy; their centrality in the story will limit the potential audience to those already in sympathy with Christian fiction requirements. It's welcome relief nonetheless to have Christian fiction that doesn't center on romance, and Whitlow is certainly a competent writer. (Aug.)