WINNER OF THE ORWELL PRIZE FOR POLITICAL WRITING 2023 Never before in years of reviewing books about buildings has one brought me to tears. This one did. Rowan Moore Observer Book of the Week On 14 June 2017 a 24storey block of flats went up in flames. The fire climbed up cladding as flammable as solid petrol. Fire doors failed to selfclose. No alarm rang out to warn sleeping residents. As smoke seeped into their homes all were told to stay put. Many did and they died. It was a tragedy decades in the making. Peter Apps meticulously exposes how a steady stream of deregulation corporate greed and institutional indifference caused a tragedy. 72 people did not need to die as the Grenfell Tower Inquiry makes clear. Here is the story of a grieving community forsaken by our government a community still waiting for justice.