P.I. Sharon McCone is sick and tired of San Francisco's persistent rainy
weather, so she jumps at the chance to investigate the sabotage of a
movie being filmed on the Hawaiian island of Kauai. The documentary is
based on the writings of Elson Wellbright, a descendant of a missionary
family and scholar of Hawaiian culture and history. Wellbright's son is
bankrolling the project and has angered many members of the family, who
aren't anxious for the film to be completed. Soon the sabotage escalates
into violence and the matriarch of the Wellbright family falls to her
death during a shoot on a clifftop. McCone's investigation takes her
into a world of family secrets, drug dealing, political insurgency, and
murder.