This beautiful novel of friendship between a boy and an old man takes place during World War I--when the death of thousands in Europe takes a backseat to a lone murder in the rural quiet of Drennan's Crossing on the banks of the Kentucky River. The narrator, 14-year-old Phillip, describes his special relationship with Joe, a new-comer to the small Southern community, as being "...like a rush of water down a narrow creek bed, widening, deepening, opening...