Jessica Talbot, former Peace Corps volunteer, is back in Panama after seven years to investigate the brutal quelling of a riot in La Joya prison. Her investigation will lead her across the country to Isla Coiba, a refuse heap for violent criminals, and into the past - to the Panama of Omar Torrijos and Manuel Noriega, and to the disappearance of a boy during the American invasion. Islands of Shadow, Islands of Light tells the story of a country struggling with the promise of boom and the legacy of military rule through the eyes of a woman whose life is twined in the rush.