Many critics consider Snow Falling on Cedars a great story but an even better rendering of people and place. Guterson's novel was generally well received, with his knowledge of the Pacific Northwest and his attention to detail garnering him the most praise. All these things are examined and re-examined as Kabuo's trial continues. Connections exist between justice and morality between love, betrayal, and redemption and between a character's public and private trial. He also examines the notions of fairness and forgiveness on a personal and social level, along with the feeling of alienation. Guterson explores a variety of related themes, including how racism can and does undermine justice in a court of law. One of the reporters covering the trial is Ishmael Chambers, he himself a war veteran, but Ishmael is not an objective observer: Because of the war, he has lost his arm and the love of his life.

Two main stories unfold and eventually merge. Points of view shift during the telling of the story, as Guterson uses flashback not only to show how the characters perceive the events of the alleged murder but also to reveal what had happened before and during the war. So did the land dispute or the wartime internment lead to the circumstances of Carl Heine's death? Only circumstantial evidence and a possible motive exist to accuse Kabuo, but nonetheless, he is jailed for 77 days and is tried in court. Upon their return, those of Japanese descent faced prejudice, grudges, and anti-Japanese sentiment, and those who were interned had some prejudices of their own. This proves difficult, though, since the Japanese islanders - many of whom were American citizens - were taken away and imprisoned during the war. On San Piedro, everyone is either a fisherman or a berry farmer, and because World War II scarred everyone, a decade later the islanders are still trying to establish some semblance of normalcy. The text taken as a whole is a meditation on prejudice and justice and the effect that one has on the other. The characters act and react to one another and with one another in a combination murder mystery and courtroom drama, as well as provide the story of a doomed love affair.

The novel explores the effects of war, the difficulties of race, and the mystery of human motivation. The trial itself takes only three days, but the novel spans the pre-war, World War II, and post-war eras. Snow Falling on Cedars opens in present-day 1954, at the start of Kabuo's trial, but the narrative moves back and forth in time. On the surface, Snow Falling on Cedars is about the murder trial of Kabuo Miyamoto, an American of Japanese descent charged with murdering Carl Heine, a fellow salmon fisherman however, the trial really provides a framework for an analysis of the effect that the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II had on the people of San Piedro Island, a small island in the Pacific Northwest.

David guterson novel snow falling on