According to writing lore, there are just two stories in the world, told in endless variations. One is “A man (or woman) goes on a journey.” The other is “A stranger comes to town.” City Under One Roof, by Iris Yamashita, is both. The stranger who goes on a journey is Detective Cara Kennedy of the Anchorage, Alaska police department. After a teenaged girl, Amy Lin, discovers a severed foot on a beach in the remote town of Point Mettier, Kennedy goes to investigate… or at least that what it looks like at first.
Point Mettier is a decidedly strange place, and that’s before you even meet the residents. About an hour or so drive from Anchorage, it might as well be on the moon. A thriving summer tourist spot, the town shuts down in the winter, occasionally sealed off from the outside world if weather prevents cars from passing through a narrow tunnel in the mountains. Nearly everyone in town lives in one large building, a 1960s era condo that was built for a now defunct military installation.
Yamashita tells the story primarily from the points of view of Amy and Cara. Amy, a Chinese American teen with a skeptical attitude about adults, doesn’t want to tell her entire story to the police. Cara, for her part, finds the town quite strange and wonders what everyone is trying to hide. Without spoiling the surprise: Everyone has a lot to hide in this place because of course they do. That’s the essence of the “stranger comes to town” story. Think Clint Eastwood in “High Plains Drifter.” Plus, Cara herself has a lot to hide, but it’s all going to come out.
A key player in the story is a mentally ill woman named Lonnie who wanders around town leading her pet moose on a leash. If this reminds you of the “Log Lady” in “Twin Peaks,” you’re getting warm. The book is trying a little hard to make everyone extra weird. But, it mostly works. Lonnie reveals that she has a buried head to match the severed foot… so Cara knows something is afoot, but can’t quit when she’s ahead (sorry about that). Because… an avalanche has locked her in town for what could be a monthlong stay.
Cara sets herself up in a condo rental the big building after exchanging barbed comments with the weird lady who runs the place. Her room comes with old record albums from a Japanese singer, who happens to live in the condo and perform nightly at a local bar. She’s weird, too. What’s she doing there? It’s a big secret.
In addition to being a fusion of story types, this book is also a blend of a mystery and a literary novel. Yamashita is a very skilled writer. This is her first novel, but she has extensive and impressive film and television credits. She knows her way around character development and suspense. The Amy character, in particular, is well drawn. Yamashita gets the teenaged mindset and conveys it well.
You will definitely want to know how it ends, which is the sign of an effective mystery. There are plenty of surprises along the way.