World War II is the backdrop for many a fascinating story, and this is one of them. David Guterson sets his story on a fictional island in Puget Sound and introduces us to a small community where the economy depends mostly on fishing and strawberry farming. The present, urgent story centers around a murder trial, in which Kabuo Miyamoto is accused of killing Carl Heine. It is 1954.

As the trial progresses, the author tells us the family stories of some of the island's residents, especially Kabuo's and Hatsue Imada's. Their families had been respected farmers on San Piedro Island for many years before the Pearl Harbor attack. After that, they were suddenly under the most horrible suspicions. First, policemen visited the homes of every family of Japanese ancestry and arrested men for having "weapons" (tools that all farmers and fishermen on the island had, if they'd all been searched), and not long after, their families were deported to Manzanar. Kabuo and Hatsue were married in Manzanar, and Kabuo joins the US Army shortly afterwards.

One of the reporters covering the story of this trial is Ishmael Chambers, who remembers both Kabuo and Hatsue from school. In fact, Ishmael has always been in love with Hatsue and has his own world of issues. And of course there is Carl Heine's story, and his family's past dealings with Kabuo's father is also important to the plot. (By the way, Hatsue, Kabuo, Ishmael, and Carl are contemporaries, all born in the United States.)

Racial prejudice was always present in this small community, but the war brought it to the fore, and now, ten years later, an American man, a WWII veteran, is once again singled out without reason. Kabuo and his family are faced with another crisis simply because of their ancestry.

It's a riveting story.