Elias McCann, local coroner and son of a remittance man, was born here. When his father died, Elias inherited the monthly remittance which sound investment turned into more than sufficient income to support Elias as a free agent. As the novel opens, Elias receives a call from a dispatcher at the police station. Ira Connaught, one of the environmental warriors has been found hanged from an ancient cedar near Tofino Inlet. Community opinion and the police agree that the death was suicide. Elias suspects murder.

Investigation takes Elias into camps on both sides of the logging question. Dauphin Logging Co. Ltd. is based in Ucluelet, 42 kilometres south of Tofino. Ucluelet has been pretty well logged out and Dauphin is faced with a huge financial loss unless he can gain legal access to clear-cut the ancient rainforest of Clayoquot.

The Sunshine Warriors maintain their base of operations in an old shack on the shore of Flores Island near the village of Ahousat, about 42 km, as the crow flies, north of Tofino. Their mandate is to protect the rainforest from loggers and over the years have fought hard and successfully to prevent clear-cutting in the Clayoquot.

Lines are drawn between the two forces and in the middle hangs the body of Ira Connaught. Ira had been a militant environmentalist and a particularly devout Catholic, sufficient reason for not committing suicide. Elias must determine which of the two sides would most want Ira dead. Chief obstacle to the progress of his investigation is RCMP Sergeant Gary Danchuk who allows old grudges to get in the way of his powers of observation. There are more deaths and a bombing before the novel reaches a tense climax on the shore of Clayoquot Sound during an inspection of the rainforest by a Senator from Washington, DC.

One couldn't ask for a better setting for this kind of novel. Tofino is beautiful, isolated and wild, but as confined as a village in an English cosy. However I wish that Zuehlke would leave off the American touches. We don't need Elias's preoccupation with his brand name clothing or to be told of his habit of drinking single-malt scotch straight and sexy Oriental girlfriends are surely passé since Jonathan Kellerman's Alex Delaware. Elias McCann can stand on his own without all the paraphernalia. Zuehlke should leave him to enjoy his scotch in silence and spare us distraction from a cracking good yarn.