River Ice

During the Great Depression, Lewis Seagrove struggles to provide for his wife and three children; an honest man, he will still do whatever necessary to take care of them. The stunning novel River Ice is about prejudice and survival. Lewis climbs onto a moving rail car carrying coal so he can throw some off, jumps from the train, and walks along the track to gather it. He takes a small row boat at night, making a treacherous trip across the 1,500-foot-wide Ohio River to pilfer vegetables from gardens on the Kentucky side. At the river, Lewis meets a young black kid squatting in an old river cabin. Sam is the son of a Mississippi sharecropper and the two develop a relationship. Lewis helps Sam get a job in his tenement building. Lewis' 12-year-old daughter, Dorothy, helps the family by taking a paper route. A customer, Todd Dreyson, is a child pornographer who Dorothy unwittingly becomes involved with, and her father finds out. Lewis confronts him and shortly after, Dreyson is murdered, a crime for which Lewis is charged. The aging district attorney wants a conviction to assure his re-election and doesn't let justice get in the way.

About the Author: David Martin lives near Raleigh, North Carolina with his wife, Desma, and is writing his next novel. Growing up in Cincinnati on the Ohio River provided the perfect backdrop for River Ice.