City Under One Roof

DEBUT In Oscar-nominated screenwriter Yamashita’s first novel, a teen finds body parts in a cove in Point Mettier, a very small town in Alaska. The police assume the limbs are from a passenger from a cruise ship. Detective Cara Kennedy arrives from Anchorage on a personal search. A year earlier, her husband and son disappeared on a camping trip, and their body parts were only recently discovered. She hopes to make a connection to those murders. Instead, she finds a secretive town where all 205 residents live in one apartment building with services, including a two-man police department. When she finds no answers, she plans to leave town—but the only exit, a two-mile tunnel, is blocked due to an avalanche. She’s stuck in a town where everyone is lying, an isolated place where abused women flee for safety. It’s not so safe when a head is discovered, a gang storms into town from a nearby reservation, and a woman and her sons disappear. Cara teams up with a police officer on a rescue plan that leads to shoot-outs and violence in the tunnels.