David Guterson is the author of the novels Snow Falling on Cedars, East of the Mountains and Our Lady of the Forest; a collection of short stories, The Country Ahead Of Us, The Country Behind, and of the non-fiction book Family Matters: Why Home Schooling Makes Sense. Snow Falling on Cedars won the PEN/ Faulkner Award. David Guterson lives in Washington State.

A beautiful new limited edition paperback of Snow Falling on Cedars, published as part of the Bloomsbury Modern Classics list

He saw the soft cedars of San Piedro Island, its high, rolling hills, the low mist that lay in long streamers against its beaches, the whitecaps riffling its shoreline. The moon had risen already behind the island - a quarter moon, pale and indefinite, as ethereal and translucent as the wisps of cloud that travelled the skies.

A fisherman is found dead in the net of his boat off the coast of a North American island. When a local Japanese-American man is charged with his murder, it becomes clear that what is at stake is more than one man's guilt. For on San Piedro, memories grow as thickly as cedar trees - memories of a charmed romance between a white boy and a Japanese girl.

Above all, the island is haunted by what happened to its Japanese residents during the Second World War, when an entire community was sent into exile while its neighbours watched.

'This is classic whodunnit territory but Guterson's fiercely intelligent and moving novel is far more than a murder mystery ... Guterson has written a novel about the human condition that marvellously combines tenderness and excitement

A skilfully constructed, deeply affecting story of love and death ... This is a hugely attractive book, written in clipped elegant prose

Compelling ... A flawlessly written first novel

Love and morality are beautifully choreographed into an exceptional debut novel