I love a good puzzle. Maybe that's why mysteries intrigue me. I'm drawn to the unpredictable. Francik creates a world full of simplistic twists and complex turns. Murder in the Houston High Rise blends amateur sleuthing with intricate drama to keep hearts racing, minds guessing and readers totally invested until the very end. Ashanti is a country girl at heart, but when the big city calls, she finds more than she bargained on. With an edge of humor, Francik delivers a new kind of detective. Fun, fresh and naive with a determination that refuses to quit and a method of problem solving that breaks all the rules.

After renewing this book twice at my library I decided it was time to finally start it. Enjoying it so far, it seems to be a good study of mass hysteria and the psychology of literally living one on top of the other.

I was trying to explain what this was about to mom on WA, alienation, communication through violence, descent to barbarism. She said "Ah, sounds like Dogville". I left about a third in on that movie, and I don't think I'll be watching this one. It sounds like I did not like this, and, well, uncomfortable as it is, I though it bloody amazing. It's just that the madness that slowly creeps in, and has you partially numbed by the time the heavy stuff crashes in, would not have time to come to full effect in the span of movie time, and would make the impact of violence unbearable.

I realize what I'm saying is creepy as fuck, just as I was aware reading that while the characters are slowly inured to the rising wilderness, the reader is inured to the rising level of brutality. And you kind of welcome it, because you wouldn't be able to cope with it otherwise. I found, about 30 pages from the end, that I had felt more of an impact by the bottle throwing (that first act of violence perpetuated) than what was going on by the last third. Familiarity breeds contempt and repetition indifference.

Yeah... creepy as fuck.

Also, the first third or so was masterfully disquieting. In the context of that first line, which, for the unwary and squeamish, is:

Later, as he sat on his balcony eating the dog, Dr Robert Laing reflected on the unusual events that had taken place within this huge apartment building during the previous three months.

every little war waged inside a big building takes an ominous shade. I lived in a building much like the one in this book for three years while a student. It was waaay outside of my money-bracket (hell, my parents money-bracket) but the old land-lady let me share her apartment for peanuts so she could have some company. I can tell you all the petty disputes and territoriality are true to life. Though they usually don't get this bloody (except for suicides. Those were an issue on Friday evenings).

Lastly, the symmetry. 3 for each, then 2 for each, then 1 for each (though he kinda cheated at the end), and one for what's left. I don't quite get what was going on with that clean-up at the end, though. End of settling pains?

That's that for my horror roll. I think I'll pick some regency romance next.

“If you want to go higher, I’ll show you. There are a lot of air-shafts, you know. The trouble is, dogs have got into them—they’re getting hungry…”

This is... the slow rising level of insanity, and then comments like this, that make you realize how really nutty things are.

"While his neighbours on the lower floors remained a confused rabble united only by their sense of impotence, here everyone had joined a local group of thirty adjacent apartments, informal clans spanning two or three floors based on the architecture of corridors, lobbies and elevators. There were now some twenty of these groups, each of which had formed local alliances with those on either side. There was a marked increase in vigilante activity of all kinds. Barriers were being set up, fire-doors locked, garbage thrown down the stairwells or dumped on rival landings."

I've just finished chapter 2 of 19, and I'm already disturbed beyond belief. This will be a difficult one.