Nine years after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, a small town in the Pacific Northwest still struggles with the troubling legacy of U.S. policies against Asian-Americans. In December 1950, just off the shores of San Piedro Island in Washington, local fisherman Carl Heine Jr. is found, overboard and tangled in his net with a severe cut over his ear. A close friend of his, Japanese-American Kazuo Miyamoto becomes the prime suspect as he was seen fishing in the same waters as Heine a few hours earlier.
His presumed motive: a secret land deal of their fathers. As non-citizens were not allowed to own land Kabuo's father once made arrangements to secretly purchase seven acres of strawberry fields from Carl Heine Sr.. But before the final payment could be made, the Miyamotos -- and every other islander of Japanese descent -- were sent to California's infamous Manzanar internment camp, and the land was sold out from under them.
The following trial is covered by the local newspaper`s reporter Ishmael Chambers, an embittered veteran who lost an arm to a Japanese bullet and his childhood love, a girl named Hatsue, to Kabuo. It's difficult for Ishmael to view the trial objectively as Ishmael discoveres that Carl's mother used the Miyamotos`s incarceration to scuttle a land purchase by Kazuo's family. This could suggest a motive for murder, but Ishmael is reluctant to step forward with the story. When he finally receives information that would acquit Kazuo, he has to put his jilted love for Hatsue aside.