Quick as the recovery of a boy in the river? (6)
I believe the answer is:
speedy
'quick' is the definition.
(synonyms)
'boy in the river?' is the wordplay.
'boy' becomes 'ed' (short for edward).
'in' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'the river?' becomes 'spey' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'ed' put inside 'spey' is 'SPEEDY'.
'as the recovery of a' acts as a link.
I am not very happy about this link. Some or all of it may be part of another bit of the clue.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for speedy that I've seen before include "Express" , "Swift" , "Expeditious" , "in a fast car?" , "Done quickly" .)