The statement that Snow falling on cedars is "more than just a murder trial" is definitely true as it is in essence a murder mystery but encompasses much more that a simple murder trial. The story itself is based around the death of a local fisherman named Carl Heine and the accusation and subsequent murder trial of Kabuo Miyamoto, a Japanese-American who is also a fisherman and, like Carl, a war veteran. This forms the …showed first 75 words of 1925 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1925 total…removed from the stereotypical ideal of a murder mystery that it should almost fall under a different category. This is not to say that it is not a murder trial, as it is. The sheer number of issues and intertwined storylines contained shows that it is much, much more than a simple murder trial. The story details and encompasses so many more issues that calling it a murder mystery does not do this story justice.