Shadow on the Maple spans the long, hard years after the Great Depression and tells of the forced removal of all Japanese Canadians from the west coast of Canada; of a Japanese father whose one ambition is for his family to be accepted as true Canadians; of his son, Akio, Canadian born, who demands citizenship as a natural right and of Meg, the young granddaughter of a white neighbour, who falls in love with Akio and marries him. The novel tells of their love, of the opposition of both their families and the hatred that surrounds them. Running parallel with their story is one of a white family dominated by a cruel, rich and powerful father who seizes every opportunity to manipulate events in a determined bid to benefit from the new and vicious upsurge of racial hatred and it tells of a stranger who arrives one morning and stays long enough to influence all their lives.