The Red Lacquer Bridge

Her great-aunt's stories were the gateway to a mystery she claimed to have taught at a school on an island, situated in the heart of the Los Angeles harbor. She described a Japanese fishing village complete with shops, a church, a temple, and a small elementary school. But the village was gone, and no one seemed to know anything about it. Twenty-two years after the death of her Aunt Lucile, Maggie Shelton was given a small cardboard box. In it were treasures from 70 years before evidence, at last, that her aunt's stories were true. But instead of solving the mystery, the contents posed deeper and darker questions than before. Who had destroyed this village, leaving not a trace of the 500 homes and 3,000 people who had lived there? Why was it a secret? And where were the children whose sweet faces looked out from the photos her great-aunt had kept in the box? The contents of that box led Maggie on a journey that ended with the discovery of a treasure her great-aunt had found two generations before her.