If, at the end of Twain's novel, Huckleberry Finn does in fact "light out for the Territory," the sixteen year old narrator of Once This River Ran Clear might be his grandson. On the lowest rung of society, he tries to make sense of the larger world and attempts to solve a mysterious crime. Novelist Peter Martin leads his self-taught narrator through picaresque adventures as he discovers injustice and develops his personal ethos. David R. Solheim, author of Riverbend: Poems A good heart in muddy waters, the oft-renamed narrator guides us along his seventeenth year on earth as his life meanders towards an unclear future. His wry, earthy humor punctuates this not-so-matter-of-fact tale of Haves and Have-nots, secrets and suspicions, heartache and heartbreak, while the turbid river divides, provides, and eventually reveals. I laughed a lot, I cried a little. Roland Trenary, author of The Songs of Roland and Mahlon Blaine's Blooming Bally Bloody Book.