Scotland Yard detective Ian Rutledge, who also suffers post-war trauma, senses that the hurried case closure indicates a flawed investigation. Trespassing on local jurisdiction, charmed by a female suspect, Rutledge must travel village to country village to coax information from reluctant and conniving citizens. Then another body is found. Assisted by the voice in his head, words of a comrade who failed to return from war, Rutledge must unravel unspoken rules of social hierarchy and decipher clues from gossip. Shell shock is real in the hunter and the hunted.
Suspense holds to the final page.
A Walk Through the Fire is as fresh as any Muller effort. This film, like previous Stanleigh documentaries intended to fight prejudice, is based on an unpublished manuscript on Hawaiian culture written by a wealthy man who vanished in 1992. McCone and longtime lover Hy Ripinsky arrive in Hawaii to a familial civil war and threat of terrorist action by a group inspired more by drugs than native rights. An attempted murder, a witnessed murder, and a bizarre suicide change the nature of McCone's investigation. A web of financial treachery, greed, and grandiose plans must be untangled to dodge danger and survive.