The Keeper by Charles Martin

Another fantastic book in the Murphy Shepherd series featuring justice. This is book four and it’s my least favorite of the four. Still an incredible read, but not as good as the other three for one major reason that I’ll highlight below. I suggest if you’ve not read book three, The Record Keeper, you read it first. There are a lot of spoilers in this book about book three.

The opening scene is a kidnapping of three girls, the daughters of the Vice President of the United States, Aaron Ashley, who is a good friend of Murphy Shepherd’s. Despite the major setback Murph had in book three, he’s forced to suck it up and rescue those girls. That’s the first two thirds of the book. The last third is getting the person behind the kidnapping.

Why do I put this book as my least favorite of the four? About a third of the book is rehashing what happened in book three and some of what happened in books one and two and even before. Nearly all the information, as a reader of the series, I already knew. What happens in book three really hits Murph hard. And Mr. Martin spends an inordinate amount of time having Murphy dwell on and get stuck in his feelings. All those around him put in time trying to shake him out of it. There is one major twist in the story that I didn’t see until just before it happened. The twist alone is worth reading the book.

As usual, the writing is superb. Despite the massive amount of self-evaluation by Murph, the story still pulled me right along. Mr. Martin has developed larger-than-life heroes. They are characters we wish were alive and were doing in real life what they do in the book. Even though it’s my least favorite of the series, it’s still one of the best books I’ve read in several years.

The other thing that Mr. Martin pulls off so well is a gritty book dealing with a heinous subject that is clean. No profanity, no sex, though there are grievous acts implied, and no unnecessary violence. There are a couple times I wished for a little more violence to happen to certain people. If you’ve read the first three, this is a must read. If you’ve not read this series, what is the matter with you? Seriously, it’s one of those series I believe is not only well-written, but it’s important for the messages it has. The book leaves open the possibility of another, and I hope Mr. Martin gifts us that. This is tough, since I’m ranking it against another one of his books. But for the reason I stated, I’m going to rank it second to The Last Exchange.

1. The Last Exchange by Charles Martin
2. The Keeper by Charles Martin
3. Weapons of Remorse by Chevron Ross
4. Relentless by Ed Gorman
5. The New Iberia Blues by James Lee Burke
6. Framed by James Scott Bell
7. The Big Empty by Robert Crais
8. After Her Deceit by Steve Rush
9. Water Grave by Mitchell S. Karnes
10. The Book of Answers by Darrow Woods
11. My Brother’s New Wife by Matt McGregor
12. Deadly Silence by Erik Carter
13. Neon Prey by John Sandford
14. A Tan and Sandy Silence by John D. MacDonald
15. Perfect Daughter by Ion Esimai
16. Her Last Wish by Blake Pierce

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