A review by rickwren
The City & the City by China Miéville

5.0

From one simple idea - that two objects can occupy the same place at the same time - China Mieville has crafted a careful, exquisite and multi-layered complexity. On the surface it's a murder mystery with a hard-boiled detective, Inspector Tyador Borlu, trying to solve a murder. But all he has is the body, it seems the crime was committed out of his jurisdiction, in the other city that exists right where his city also exists and you can see into that city if you really want to, but you don't want to because that's a violation; it's Breach and you don't want to Breach.

The two cities represent two different cultures, one in decay - Beszel - an Eastern European city where buildings are old, people are working class and poor, and the ways are traditional. The other is in ascendancy - Ul Qoma - a bright modern city with loads of foreign investment and an influx of literate, educated young men and women. I took this as a before and after metaphor for the Eastern Block and the Cold War.

The way the author plays with time/space and the in betweens while keeping the mystery flowing and the plot thickening was masterful. It makes my head swim to realize how much richness and description he compacted into page after page of fast-paced action. It's a book that I'll compare others to from this point onward.

It's a deserving nominee for the Hugo.