Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson

A bit of a cheat to include this book here I suppose because I read it over the Christmas holidays and not too recently. However, it is a wonderful novel and I noticed that we had a copy in the LRC. It's definitely well worth checking out.

Set in the close-knit island community of Amity in the aftermath of the Second World War, this is a compelling courtroom drama. As the murder trial of Japanese fisherman, Kabuo Miyamoto, unfolds, the lives of those affected is told through a series of beautifully written flashbacks. David Guterson has assembled a strong cast of characters: there is journalist and war veteran, Ishmael Chambers, who might just have personal reasons of his own for wanting the jury to return a guilty verdict; then there is the accused's wife, Hatsue, who also has much to conceal. The townspeople are a curious assortment who express racist bigotry on the one hand and prove surprisingly liberal minded on the other. As a reader, you cannot help but feel a part of this small, exposed world clinging to the edge of the Pacific.

The story unfolds at a leisurely pace and works at a number of levels - as a murder mystery, as a forbidden love story, as a work of philosophy and as a riveting examination of the shameful ineptitude with which the USA dealt with its own Japanese citizens following Pearl Habour.

I cannot praise this beautiful, brilliantly engaging book highly enough. If you enjoy it, you should also seek out Peter Hoeg's, Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow, or - on a slightly different tack - Andrea Levy's, Small Island.

Mr Mudd