Huckleberry Dick

What do you get when a writer strives to write the Great American Novel, like Moby-Dick or Adventures of Huckleberry Finn? You might get Huckleberry Dick, which is nothing like those two famous tales. H.D. for short, is a love story detective mystery that has been described as a stream-of-consciousness event, defiantly personal and shockingly addictive. The very first page of the novel contains a warning: "This work of fiction contains sex, drugs, violence, and adult situations (so it should be fun)." As Martin himself admits, "I am finding my voice and just as everyone believes that their reality is the one and only one happening, so must I. Good luck to us all."

Huckleberry Dick begins with our hero, Joe Freedom, living the life of both a hermit and a starving artist-poet in his parents' basement, which he calls his Man Cave. Fearing for his sanity, his mother insists Joe get therapy and hands him a business card with a stunning photo of the incredibly beautiful Dr. Vana Fox. He immediately decides therapy could prove useful, and after his first session with the lovely Dr. Fox (and she is a fox indeed), Joe falls head over heels in love and wants to win her heart no matter how much therapy it takes. These sessions have been described as "two characters circling each other like boxers but hitting with words," or punching with punchlines.

Meanwhile, back at the Man Cave, Joe's detective agency, Freedom Investigations, receives an email from the unusual cyber-moniker Huckleberry Dick, who turns out to be a professor of American Literature at Stanford University named Otis Grill. He wants to hire Joe to locate his missing daughter, Alex, an art student from Stanford who has been missing for two

weeks. Joe is happy to have the work, hoping it won't interfere with his budding romance with Vana Fox.

Speaking of new love, this is how Joe Freedom describes his first steamy evening with Vana Fox: "I bet you're just dying for details about the first time Vana and I became intimate, let the sparks fly, hooked up: consummated the relationship. I would tell you, but words are dead, dictionaries buried, and you can't Google something this sweet. Society's servers would melt.

Unsubstantiated stories would plague the newsrooms of the world, and journalists trying to condense her love into a headline would end up jumping from windows. It was traffic-stopping, terrific, and tender in succession. But I'm not one to kiss and tell.

Ok, there was some kissing, well lots of it, in many places with remarkable results. She brought the heat, laughed in the right places, made it awesome, made it love."

Rod Martin's writing is a delightful mix of prose, rap, and poetry, creating a multi-layered narrative brimming with humor, romance, and suspense. This is more than a detective story; it's an exploration of human relationships and the absurdity of life's twists and turns.