The first thing you’ll notice in Charles Martin’s The Water Keeper is the font used in the untitled prologue. It’s sans serif, and our eyes are accustomed to serif. But, don’t despair, serif returns in Chapter One.

The protagonist, Murphy Shepherd, lives alone on an island, where he tends an abandoned church. We quickly learn he’s a rescuer of lost souls–not necessarily spiritually lost, but physically lost or threatened.

What starts as a nautical journey down the Intracoastal Waterway as a trip to honor his mentor’s wishes for the disposal of his ashes quickly morphs into something else entirely. Murphy encounters an eclectic cast of characters that includes a woman desperate to find her daughter, an old man dying of cancer, an orphan searching for her identity, and a stray dog (books are always better when […]