T;LDR: The classic hardboiled detective murder mystery wrapped in an unique setting, The City & The City is a fun read, but has some downsides.
The City & The City by China Miéville
My rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
I read this book because a lot of people on the /r/fantasy reddit highly recommended it and the premise sounded very interesting. A mystery set in a unique setting? Well, I love mysteries and I’m always looking for new authors, especially in the fantasy genre, so I picked it up.
Overall, I wasn’t disappointed, but there were definitely parts of the book where I was. My score is 4 which is why it’s ‘almost’ quite good. It’s fun though!
Plot
The premise is simple: a woman’s body is found near a skate park. A detective, Inspector Borlú of the Extreme Crime Squad, is assigned the case. What follows is the usual crime pattern – figure out who the woman is, how she got there and who killed her.
However, The City & The City has a bit of a twist…or a second main character: its setting.
Borlú lives in Beszel, a decaying city somewhere in eastern Europe. It overlaps with a city called Ul Qoma. And overlapping is a bit of a misnomer. Both cities are in the same space at the same time. You walk down the street choosing to avoid bumping into people who aren’t in your copy of the world – you learn from an early age to ‘unsee’ the overlapping city, architecture, people, cars, etc.
And if you do stare too long and/or interact with the shadows from the other city, that’s where Breach occurs.
Breach is something in between, something in the middle. Borlú talks about it hushed tones, as if just saying the words out loud will get him in trouble. It’s a strong feeling you get that Breach is a very bad bad thing – the boogeymen who live in between. Magical and all-powerful, the rumors are they aren’t even human.
People disappear in Breach all the time.
Borlú finds out the murdered woman lived in Ul Qoma. His equivalent there, Inspector Dhatt, requests his assistance. And so, he soon finds himself in the other city, trying to unsee his apartment, favorite places to eat, and navigate the very different political climate that is Ul Qoma.
What happens next is a quickening pace of discussions, action, political intrigue and puppet masters pulling the strings. I’ll leave the spoilers for someone else’s review.
T;LDR: This is a mystery book wrapped in an intriguing setting and environment. The author uses the setting to increase the conflict and the tension, and it also adds to the political minefield Borlú has to traverse.
What I Liked
First, the world. It is a unique premise. It’s not a multiverse, where you travel in time to get from one place to the next. The world is overlapping, a border crossing that is neutral, corners and pockets where you could easily swap between. Like an old negative that got damaged in processing and two pictures were smashed into one.
The way the world works, the set up, the structure, the history and the initial intrigue of Breach kept me hooked in the story. I liked that the overlapping cities were completely different in political structure, architecture, fashion, food, and economy. The author did a great job making them different, even if they were anchored to the same point on the map.
I also liked how he handled Borlú. Borlú is a solid character and you root for him fairly early in the book. He is the standard can’t-let-this-go detective who keeps poking and prodding even when he shouldn’t. A lot of the narrative focuses around his perceptions and impressions of his world and what it seems like, weaving them in like the two intertwined cities.
His sidekick, Corwi, is also nicely crafted. She has dimension, ideas of her own, and you feel like they have a great partnership ahead of them.
And I did like seeing Ul Qoma through Borlú’s eyes while he tried to unsee his normal day-to-day life. There was no skimping on this part of the story, even if it could have – but didn’t – drag it down.
The mystery, while not especially complicated, was well-written. The villain wasn’t obvious and he had specific motivations for what he did.
But….
What I didn’t Like
At the beginning of this book, I didn’t quite get what Breach was and why it was a taboo thing. And then it gains significance through a memory shared by Borlú, and I slowly thought I understood what was happening.
But I was wrong. Sort of.
Without spoiling it, I found the Breach section of the book to be the weakest. It was also the shortest part of the story. Because he had to set it up as well as move the plot along, it dragged a bit for me. There was a lot of hurry up and wait. I finished this at 2 am, so dragging is not a good thing (which may have impacted some of my feelings here).
But the part that really killed it for me was when we meet the beings in Breach. When I read that part of the book, I thought – really? This is it? The boogeymen – for me – lost a lot of their otherworldly scariness. And that was unfortunate. Based on the lead up to Breach, I expected aliens, or wizards, or boogeymen. And I got none of those things.
I also was not a huge fan of Inspector Dhatt. His character was a bit flat, with odd humor and constant Disneyland happiness. He jumped on board Borlú’s derailing investigation train fairly early on, which pit him against his own rules and regulations. It felt a little too easy. I would’ve loved a bit more character depth from Dhatt, more of his motivations and reasons for ditching the rules. And I got none of that either.
To Sum Up (too late!)
Overall, this is a good book and I do recommend it. But… for me, it’s not quite as amazing as others find it. The mystery was your standard trope – bad guy hiding in plain site, the political intrigue was alright but not present enough really to interest me. The world is amazing and the way the author handles Borlú crossing into Ul Qoma and the issues he has was quite well done.
I was disappointed in the ending and what it meant – not because the ending was poorly written or thought out, but because of what it meant for the world and the character that I quite liked reading about.
So, not a 5 star book, but still quite good.
And it fills out a square in my Fantasy Bingo card, so that’s good too.
About the Author
In case you’re interested, here is the bio I’ve found for the author. He has a site, but it’s a bit of a mess.
China Miéville is the author of King Rat; Perdido Street Station, winner of the Arthur C. Clarke Award and the British Fantasy Award; The Scar, winner of the Locus Award and the British Fantasy Award; Iron Council, winner of the Locus Award and the Arthur C. Clarke Award; Looking for Jake, a collection of short stories; and Un Lun Dun, his New York Times bestselling book for younger readers. He lives and works in London.
You can find my truncated, but similar, Goodreads review here.
If you wish to purchase this book, pick your vendor of choice here, or just cave to the man and get it from Amazon here.