Number of Pages: 373
Genre: Fantasy, crime, detective
The city is Beszel and the city is Ul Qoma, two cities in two different countries, but each occupying the same geographic space. The cities are built in and around each other, however anyone in one city (resident or visitor) is forbidden to take any notice of anyone or anything in the other city. Any failure to do so incurs the wrath of the mysterious and all-powerful "Breach". When the body of a murdered student is found in Beszel, it seems like a routine case for Inspector Tyador Borlu of the Extreme Crime Squad, but the investigation proves more complex and dangerous than Borlu could have imagined, leading him from one city to another and to the even more mysterious places in between.
This 2009 novel from British author China Mieville works as a complex and intriguing fantasy tale in a well-realised world, the rules by which the two cities exist together and function are well worked out and believable, but this also works as an exciting detective novel, and it delivers anything you might want from a crime novel. A gruesome murder, investigation, no shortage of suspects, action, chases, and a likeable and troubled protagonist. It also makes a point about how people deliberately ignore the more troubling aspects of where they live.
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