This remarkably rich and layered book is a riveting courtroom drama, a poignant love story, and a haunting reflection on the delicate balance between the mind and heart.<br/><br/>While a Japanese-American fisherman stands trial for murder on an island in Puget Sound, snow blankets the countryside. The whiteness covers the courthouse, but it cannot conceal the memories at work inside: the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, an unrequieted love, and the ghosts of racism that still haunt the islanders. Even as the tension mounts, author David Guterson tells the tale with great tenderness, right up to the sheer poetry of the final sentence.