City Under One Roof by Iris Yamashita
In her debut mystery novel City Under One Roof (2023), American screenwriter and author Iris Yamashita takes us to Alaska, one of the coldest places on earth, where murder haunts the residents of Davidson Condos in Point Mettier – or, as people call it, the “City Under One Roof.”
“The City was where all the good stuff had been when the military was there, but now it was just an abandoned building.”
This isolated Alaskan town can only be accessed by a tunnel, and all 205 residents live in a single high-rise building. The story begins when a local teenager finds a severed hand and foot at the cove which belong to a man whose ex-wife lives in Davidson Condos. A detective from outside the town, Cara Kennedy, is called in to work on the case, and the investigation begins.
Cara is teamed up with Point Mettier police officer Joe Barkowski (known as J.B.), and is helped along the way by Chief Sipley, a detective in his sixties. Cara is originally from Anchorage, and has been off active duty for a couple of years. Her husband and son went missing on a hiking trip, to later be found dead. Their tragic deaths are similar to that of this murdered man, which gives Cara her own motive for working on the case and discovering the truth.
“I was interested in this case because my husband and son went missing after they went hiking in the woods. We did a massive search, but it was as if they had just vanished. A few months ago, they were finally found. I mean their remains were found… spread out in pieces… almost a year after they had disappeared.”
After a heavy snowstorm and avalanche causes the tunnel to be closed completely, Cara has to stay at the infamous and claustrophobic Davidson Condos, amongst the odd and suspicious residents who have many strange tales to share. There are supernatural stories about the building, which is known for being haunted, and filled with ghosts that come late at night.
“They say there are ghosts that haunt Point Mettier. I heard one story about a spirit of one of the servicemen who used to live here when it was a military base who roams the hallways.”
Cara and J.B. begin questioning all the residents. They go into the old files of the building to learn more about the victim, his ex-wife and his close connections, searching for anything that might stop this train of death from reaching more people in the city. However, all the residents have something to hide from the police, making each of them a suspect in this murder mystery.
J.B. has recently come out of a failed relationship, where his girlfriend cheated on him with another man. Cara and J.B. become close as they work together on solving the case; however, they have both gone through difficult experiences in their past, which continues to haunt them.
Alongside Cara's point of view, the story is told from two other perspectives. There's Amy, the teenage girl who was the first to discover the victim's remains. She openly narrates her own experience of the incident. And then there's Lonnie, a traumatised young woman who claims that she hears voices all around the city.
In this atmospheric debut, Yamashita has created a gripping story using elements from several different genres, such as horror, crime and mystery, to draw you into the novel’s deepest secrets. This thrilling action story has many intriguing twists and turns, with ghosts, haunted places, secret tunnels, and more. Here, the reader will discover a mysterious Alaskan city where all the residents are isolated under one roof, looking out for one killer.
Joyce Bou Charaa is a Lebanese writer, editor, and book reviewer. Her articles are published in The Mark Literary Review, Newpages, Journal of Expressive Writing, and currently in The Indiependent. She also has a BA in English language and literature, from the Lebanese University.