Sep 4, 2026 | book review, Book Reviews, City Under One Roof, Iris Yamashita, mystery
The first book in Iris Yamashita’s Cara Kennedy Series, City Under One Roof introduces readers to a cast of intriguing characters caught up in a murder mystery that unfolds in an Alaskan town contained within one building and wholly cut off from outside help…or escape.
No one really visits Point Mettier, Alaska in the off-season when the winter snows thicken and traveling becomes hazardous.
But all that changes when a couple of body parts wash ashore in a hidden cove and are found by Amy Lin, a local high school student.
She seems trustworthy, despite lying about exactly how she found a dead man’s foot.
Amy is one of the main characters, and as a curious, intelligent, and bored seventeen-year-old, she is the perfect entryway into the myriad quirks of the lonely town and its reclusive residents.
Like Lonnie, the local with a pet moose who is terrified of being sent back to a mental institution.
Such is the adeptness of Yamashita’s extremely realistic characters that Lonnie can provide an unreliable perspective that readers will sympathize with while they try to make sense of her highly-guarded thoughts and secrets.
Anchorage detective Cara Kennedy is the one who disturbs the status quo when she arrives via the one-way, one-lane car tunnel in a terribly anxious, yet determined state to follow-up on the severed body parts.
Otherwise, she would not dare to brave such a claustrophobic setting and risk a complete nervous breakdown.
As a protagonist, the brave, witty, and staunch detective is on a mission to uncover the truth, no matter the cost to herself.
She is such a fun, complex, and endearing character that has undergone tragic circumstances leading her on a nightmarish pursuit.
And Cara’s nightmare extends itself.
For aside from when it is safe to boat into and out of Point Mettier, which is usually not during the eight-months-long winter period, the tunnel is the lone escape route for motor vehicles…and it collapses during a storm-caused avalanche shortly after Cara arrives.
Cara finds herself stuck in the Dave-Co, a single condominium high-rise that acts as a motel, permanent residence, school, hospital, restaurant, and police station for the 205 town residents.
Besieged by the aftermath of the blizzard, in the epitome of isolation, the extraordinary circumstances surrounding the murder investigation in Point Mettier build the tension and magnify its effects on all of the people involved.
A potential love interest for Cara is the new Point Mettier cop on the scene, J.B., who is a good guy, though flawed and may be more honest than his boss, Chief Sipley, would like.
The magnitude of a City Under One Roof’s bio-dome-like circumstances, if that bio-dome was subject to vicious and deadly temperature drops amidst blizzard conditions, is immense and impactful, taking the reader on a thrill-ride, with laughs and fist-clenching suspense in good measure.
Readers will feel besieged themselves by the remoteness and the heavy snowfall presented.
I love a good story where the setting is so well crafted that it becomes another character of significance in the book and such is the case with City Under One Roof.
I recommend reading this one by the fire wrapped in a blanket…and after…start book two in Iris Yamashita’s Cara Kennedy Series, Village in the Dark.
“Iris Yamashita’s City Under One Roof: Tense, Riveting & Real” Was Written By R.J. Huneke.
Iris is the Academy Award-nominated screenwriter for the script “Letters From Iwo Jima” directed by Clint Eastwood. The film was nominated for 4 Oscars including “Best Picture” and “Best Original Screenplay.”
City Under One Roof is her debut mystery novel and the first in the Cara Kennedy series, set in a tiny Alaskan town where all the residents lives in a single high-rise building. The book was Crime Fiction Lover’s Editor’s Choice for Best Debut Crime Novel of the year and was named one of the Best Thrillers of the year by Washington Post as well as one of the Best Crime Fiction of the year by Library Journal and one of the Best Fiction Books of the year by Reader’s Digest.
Village in the Dark is her follow up novel to City Under One Roof. ~Goodreads.com
Nov 10, 2025 | Author Interview, book review, R.J. Huneke, Russ Colchamiro, sci-fi
Join TFF this week as renowned author of the Angela Hardwicke Series Russ Colchamiro Speaks To R.J. Huneke LIVE on Zoom [sign up free here] this Wednesday, November 12, 2025 at 7pm EST!
As RJ’s Ants Waking Book Tour continues readers of TheForgottenFiction.com are privy to an evening of discussion as the two authors talk writing, from mystery genres to sci-fi, and everything in between!
Russ Colchamiro is a fellow genre masher and is excited to come on and hit on his incredible mystery-science-fiction Angela Hardwicke series (we reviewed Book 1 here) – all 5 books in the series so far are on his site here – as well as an intriguing new Y/A horror espionage thriller titled Hyde & Seek: Fury of the White Mask.
Prepare your queries, as the two writers will talk shop and also answer some questions from readers and attendees!
Sign up To Attend the Event Free at Zoom here.
Jan 16, 2022 | ANNOUNCEMENT SCHEDULE, Centipede Press, dune, mark molnar, News
Drive for 500 Followers + Q1 Announcement Schedule for TFF and Rune Works found at: TheForgottenFiction.com, Facebook.com/theforgottenfiction/, Twitter.com/ForgottenFicti2.
Q1 2022, Quarter One, is here!
Hello everyone! Eager Readers, the TFF Fellowship, and lovers of reading and fiction in general, I am forever grateful to have you here, and I want to put down as much of the fun for the upcoming quarter and year as possible.
Drive For 500:
I am jumping to the next contest, and with nearly 900 Twitter followers and so very close to 500 Facebook followers, and I asking each and every one of you to reach out and invite anyone you know who loves reading or would want a good introduction to reading fiction, with spoilers or spoiler-free.
I think TFF is a great place to start to revolutionize the love of reading and collecting books.
And so, when we reach 500 Facebook followers I will start up the next EPIC contest!
The Epic Giveaway Contest will consist of many treasured editions, including Signed and Limited (S/L), small press, and even what I suspect is a first print, first edition of Neil Gaiman’s American Gods Annotated – it is a gargantuan book sealed!
There are a ton of mainstream authors here with both paperbacks and first edition hardcovers, classics and contemporary, so no matter what you want to read and/or collect I hope to have you covered.
There will also be new swag from others and from me! More on this below.
I have been blessed 1. To have a nose for finding good books, 2. To have family members hunting books down for me and 3. to have a few great friends in the book community who have been so generous to donate many a precious book.
Much as I do not enjoy the mailing process, I greatly enjoy speaking with and sending out prizes to those that win them.
I will wait to achieve 500 followers in FB to start up the Epic Contest and post its prizes in detail, but I am sure the Rune Works woodshop will be involved with some woodworking and gift certificates for those on the livestream.
Regardless of whether or not we get 500 followers by then, I will still have some kind of contest and giveaway in my first TFF livestream of the year on Thursday, January 27th, 2022 at 12pm ET.
But I would like it to be EPIC. 20 or 30 followers more and TFF reaches a major milestone.
Now I have live conversations and interviews that will be taking place in Q1.
This week, I have the privilege to interview bestselling author Richard Chizmar on Facebook Live January 19th, 2022 At 7:30pm ET @TFF’s Facebook.com/theforgottenfiction.
His two newest books include his NY Times Bestselling Chasing the Boogeyman, and Gwendy’s Final Task co-authored with Stephen King.
I chatted on The Jeff Word show with Jeff Terry on his Facebook Livestream last week, and that was a blast!
Jeff is a voracious reader, reviewer, book unboxer, and I encourage anyone that wants to hear us talking about our favorite books, life and books we do not care for, haha, to tune in to see the video here.
I highly recommend Jeff’s Youtube channel as well.
I have also queued up but am waiting to solidify a date with renowned artist Mark Molnar, whose work most recently adorns one of the finest fine editions ever made in Centipede Press’ DUNE by Frank Herbert.
He was very kind to license to me an unused piece for the book (with Jerad and CP’s approval) for the Rune Works Woodshop to create a Dune case (coming in Q2 2022) for the book with the art engraved.
Check out Mark’s art for Dune and on his site here!
I am catching up on all remaining cases, in the order they came in over the next few weeks.
I have projects I have had in the hopper for years now coming close too!
A friend of mine is building me a webstore for TFF merch and swag that may be ready this week.
Drive For 500 aside, there will be many a giveaway contest in Q1 and a ton of interesting projects announced. Stay tuned!
Upcoming reviews include: Gwendy’s Magic Feather, Dune, Gwendy’s Final Task, Ghoul and the Cape, The Clearing and many more!
The Q1 Announcement Schedule for 2022:
- Thursday Jan. 27th is a Livestream @ 12pm ET: the next contest and prizes are announced.
- Thursday Feb. 4th is a Livestream @ 12pm ET and the LIVESTREAM event and giveaway!
- Thursday Feb. 24th is a Livestream @ 12pm ET: the next contest and prizes are announced.
- Thursday March 3rd is a Livestream @ 12pm ET and the LIVESTREAM event and giveaway!
- Thursday March 24th is a Livestream @ 12pm ET: the next contest and prizes are announced.
- Thursday April 7th is a Livestream @ 12pm ET and the LIVESTREAM event and giveaway!
Be well,
~R.J.H.
