The city and the city

by China Miéville. Macmillan, 2009.

It’s difficult to pigeonhole Miéville. He writes cutting-edge genre-bending fiction, not quite crime, not quite science-fiction or fantasy. The City and The City could as easily be short-listed for a Gold Dagger for best crime novel, or a Hugo award for best science-fiction, as for a Booker prize for best novel. It explores the idea of the divided city, like Berlin or Jerusalem, and in heightening the idea, he says something worthwhile and interesting about sectarianism and ethnic cleansing.

A body is found in the city of Beszel, somewhere in eastern Europe, and it becomes a case for Inspector Tyador Borlu of the Extreme Crime Squad. To unravel the mystery, Borlu must journey to Ul Qoma, a city which shares the same boundaries as Beszel, but which it is forbidden to see. Residents of either city routinely ‘unsee’ the other, (perhaps in the way that we often fail to notice some residents of our own city?) and a shadowy third force ensures that no breaches of this etiquette occur. Borlu’s investigations unearth a powerful conspiracy.

- John