China Mieville is one of the most unique writers you will come across and this book is a prime example. Essentially a police procedural/murder mystery, what makes it very different is the fact that it takes place in the paired cities of Beszel and Ul Qoma. And by paired, I mean overlaid and by overlaid I mean that if you are in one city, you must not “see” the other city and vice versa. You must “unsee”. If you violate this, you are in “breach”, a very serious offense that is treated by “disappearance”. That’s kind of a major “spoiler” for the book, but it helps to know it going in as otherwise you are not quite sure whats going on for a bit.
The reason for the overlay is a bit vague; some schism in the distant past. The City and the City reside in a vaguely eastern European region and one of the paired cities is a rundown metropolis while the other is a boomtown. OK. Think about that for a few minutes. And the denizens are OK with it. Right.
Visitors from outside (such as from the US) must undergo an orientation to learn how to “not see” the other city. Living in this society has forced members of one city to develop a blind spot to the denizens of the other city – whom they may walk right next to…. very weird and fantastical how people can get their heads into this, but they have done it for hundreds of years.
Into this, we have a murder, a foreign exchange student is found dead and the circumstances of the murder are such that it appears to have “breached” the boundaries of the cities. The investigating detective is Inspector Tyador Borlu who must cross back and forth between the City and the City to solve the mystery. Using this device, the reader shown the mechanisms of living in such a bizarre environment and how people make it fit into their world view. The resolution of the murder is kind of “meh” – whatever. It’s the world building and the journey here that is really worth the tale. Need to read this one twice to catch everything.