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The City and the City by China Miéville

Reviewed by Peter Wood

The City & The City, Miéville’s latest novel, is stylistically quite different than some of his previous work and, I think, considerably more accessible. In short, The City & The City is a crime novel that follows Inspector Tyador Borlú as he investigates a murder. The tricky part, for Borlú is that while the body was found in his city, Besźel, the murder appears to have been committed in the neighboring city of Ul Qoman. Additionally, there seems to be political slant to the case, putting Borlu in conflict with some very powerful people in both cities. He travels to Ul Qoman and teams up with his counterpart in that city, Qussim Dhatt and together they attempt to bring the murderer to justice. And of course, there are red herrings strewn about and further fatalities as the investigation proceeds (as any proper detective story should have).

Minor plot-oriented spoilers. DO NOT BREACH.