Branston Flett is a famous American journalist who comes to wartime Sarajevo with the intent of covering the ethnic conflict. But what he discovers is the netherworld of a city gone mad. A police informant is found drowned in a bathtub of a building that rarely has water. The building is in a Serb enclave detested by the Croats. A Croatian detective with a Serbian wife is suspicious. Meanwhile gunfire, mortar, and artillery ring through the city. People are starving; others are dying. War story, crime thriller, tale of urban decay, The Monkey House is a powerful book.