Born and raised in a Malaysian fishing village, Ah Hock favors stability above all, a preference at odds with his rapidly modernizing surroundings. So what brings him to kill a man? While the victim has been mourned and Ah Hock has served time for the crime, his motive remains unclear, even to himself. This question leads a young, privileged journalist to his door, and in this novel by the Whitbread Book Award winning author of The Harmony Silk Factory, she and Ah Hock will both reckon with systems of power, race, and class in a place where success is promised to all yet delivered only to its lucky heirs.