Everyone in Point Mettier has something to hide - or is on the run.

 

The entire town (of 200 people) hunkers down together in a single high-rise building for the winter, casually referred to by residents as the Dave-Co. They’re cold to outsiders and know everything about everyone else in their quirky, intimate community. 

 

Cara Kennedy, a detective from Anchorage, arrives on a personal mission to investigate dismembered body parts that have washed up on the shore. But when an avalanche seals the residents and detective in for days, Cara has to figure out what the town is hiding and who might be a murderer.

 

Alongside Cara, we get POVs from two locals. Amy is a teenager with a single mom, helping run their Chinese restaurant (one of only two spots to eat), falling in love for the first time, and inadvertently stumbling into family secrets. Lonnie is a disabled young woman who witnessed her mother’s violent death as a child and now cares for an orphaned moose. Both additional perspectives are interesting and add unique voices.

 

City Under One Roof is a clever spin on a locked-room mystery, but ultimately I felt as though a lot of threads were left undeveloped in a way that made the story feel detached. The characters not in focus (really, everyone outside of Cara) felt flat and sometimes stereotypical. The ending was a bit too quick and clumsy - with a tossed-in cliffhanger to initiate a series following Detective Cara.

 

The internal logic shifts towards the last third of the book, and suddenly some characters are transporting themselves around with ease. This took away from the claustrophobic atmosphere that I’d so enjoyed - and it also led our main investigators to make some foolish & lacking-in-common-sense decisions, which was rather frustrating.

 

I did enjoy the depictions of Alaskan life and the slow-building, claustrophobic tension. The structure of the building & society and the interactions between residents were compelling.

 

The overall framework was intriguing and this was a debut (I can see how the structure connects to the author’s background in screenwriting) - I absolutely think there’s potential for the series.

 

CW: murder, death (incl. child & parent), animal death, mental illness, domestic abuse, kidnapping, stalking, gaslighting, ableism, gore, gun violence, child abuse, forced institutionalization, sexism, sexual harassment, psychosis, PTSD

 

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(I received an advance reader copy of this book; this is my honest review.)