Snow Falling on Cedars
(David Guterson)

This is the kind of book where you can smell and hear and see the fictional world the writer has created. The story is nominally about a murder trial.Set on an island in the straits north of Puget Sound, in Washington, where everyone is either a fisherman or a berry farmer, But since it's set in the 1950s, lingering memories of World War II, internment camps and racism helps fuel suspicion of a Japanese-American fisherman, a lifelong resident of the islands.

It centers on the trial of Kabuo Miyamoto, a Japanese man who is being tried for the first degree murder of a fellow fisherman named Carl Heine. The book is not a courtroom drama, however. The wife of the accused, Hatsue Miyamoto, and the local reporter, Ishmael Chambers, at one time were high school sweethearts who were torn apart by the Japanese internment during World War II. Through a series of flashbacks, we learn about their relationship and how it ended. Ironically, Ishmael discovers evidence that will set Kabuo free, but he is still bitter about his past with Hatsue, and he struggles with his conscience. This is not a simple story, and it becomes confusing at times because of the flashbacks, which sometimes are inside other flashbacks. It is more historical fiction than anything else, and it brings to light a period in America's history that is not usually remembered fondly.

Personally, I was kind of bored with the book at times, and the courtroom scenes were a little bit too long for me. Altogether,the ending seemed to be trying to be a moral lesson, but it barely pulled it off. But because I watched the movie first then the book, I was able to go into the fictional world and absorbed it more readily i guess.