The first in the Furnass Towers series, The Building tells the story of an ill-conceived and ill-executed attempt to build a high-rise apartment building in an ailing mill town in Pennsylvania. That is a nutshell is the plot, but it becomes an increasingly compelling one as things start to go wrong on the construction site and conflicts arise between the personnel involved in the project, from the architect to the lowliest building hand. Tensions continue to ratchet up and the book becomes more and more of a page-tuner. All the characters gradually emerge as fully-rounded and complex personalities until the reader feels immersed in their lives and the unfolding action. The time and place are vividly evoked and I began to feel as though I had actually visited the town. I’m surprised that so little attention has been paid to the book, or indeed the series, on Amazon and Goodreads, for it surely merits a wide readership. Highly recommended.

3 stars

Debut novel

Jack Crawford is the jobsite superintendent and Mac is the field superintendent for Drake Construction. They have worked together for years; going all over the country building skyscrapers.

Gregg Prsybysz is the building inspector who is new to the job. He is timid and not at all assertive. He is afraid of ladders. Due to his timidity, he lets go a decision to make them stop welding. The inspector is supposed to be there during the whole welding process and the welder is supposed to clean his rig after every pass. Neither of these things occurred, but Gregg said nothing at all.

Pamela is the flirty woman across the street from the Furnass worksite. She has an affair with Jack and will probably with Bill as well.

Vince is the architect who purposely hid some of the specs in the building so it would get built. If he had been honest, the developer Lyle couldn’t have afforded to build it.

After the accident, everyone starts to second guess themselves. Or, they’re trying to justify their parts in the accident. They tell themselves that it wasn’t their fault; it was some other guy who was responsible. Gregg does, however, get up the nerve to take on Jack over the whole accident and why he made the decisions that he did.

I know nothing about putting up buildings, or inspecting, regulations and so on, so I can’t comment on that part of the book. It was fairly well written and plotted. There was too much extraneous yadda-yadda in the story though. The book could easily have been shorter and still imparted what the author wanted to say.

I want to thank NetGalley and Calling Crow Press for forwarding to me a copy of this book to read.

** This book is not yet available on Goodreads or Amazon yet.