When a disembodied arm and leg wash ashore in Point Mettier, Alaska, most residents assume they belong to someone who died by suicide. But Detective Cara Kennedy, who comes to the town from Anchorage to investigate, suspects there's more to this story.

The cast of oddballs and misfits in Iris Yamashita's City Under One Roof rent apartments in a single high-rise complex known as "Dave Co," where everyone knows everyone else's business. These strange folks do not greet Cara warmly as she begins poking around and asking questions about the washed-up body parts. The locals of Point Mettier wish to be left alone, happy to assume the appendages belong to a soul lost to depression at sea. As the mystery unfolds, Yamashita shifts between multiple points of view, covering the perspectives of Cara; Amy, a teenager working with her mother in their local Chinese restaurant; and Lonnie, a troubled...