There's a reason that everyone you know might have read this book -- it's a beautifully wrought, extremely evocative story set on San Piedro Island in Puget Sound in the 1950s. The story's protagonist is a local newspaperman, whose investigation into a murder brings him face-to-face with the cultural divide between the Japanese and the white residents of the island, and with his own young love affair with the accused Japanese man's wife. Readers are rewarded not only with some fine storytelling and beautiful prose, but with a vivid glimpse of life on these islands in Puget Sound.  (PNW52, $14.95)