Detective Sergeant Apelu Soifua spent seven years in the San Francisco Police Department, where the job was just a job and solving crimes required cool detachment. But back home on American Samoa, life is personal—especially for a cop. Because on a small island where no one is a stranger and secrets are widely known but never discussed, solving crimes requires a certain…finesse.

Here, Apelu must walk the line between two cultures: Samoan versus American, native versus new. And that gulf never yawns wider than when a white family’s home in Pago Pago is burglarized. And what appears to be a simple, open-and-shut case turns out to anything but. As the evidence piles up, Apelu follows a tangled trail between cultures, dead bodies, hidden codes, and a string of lies on his hunt for the ugly truth buried at the heart of paradise.

Set against the steamy backdrop of the Samoan jungle, this thoughtful whodunit introduces a memorable new gumshoe to the ranks of detective fiction.