City and the City by China Mieville
Introduction
City and the City by China Mieville is a noir police procedural set in two overlapping cities that share the same location as each other. Borlu is the detective that must travel between the two cities and try not to lose his sense of place as he investigates a case. Will Borlu get lost between the City and the City and never return to his old life?
Summary
In City and the City by China Mieville inspector Tyador Borlu of the city of Beszel extreme crime squad investigates the murder of a woman. A group of kids saw someone dump the body from a van.
Borlu talks to constable Lizbyet Corwi about the case. Borlu sees an old woman who he thinks he should not be able to see. He looks way and pretends she’s not there.
Borlu and Corwi work on the case. The victim’s name is Fulana Detail. None of the leads are panning out. Then Borlu gets a break from a caller from Ul Qoma. Beszel is the city and Ul Qoma is the other city. The two cities are side by side and interwoven. The caller said he knew Fulana from when she was in the Ul Qoma underground. Fulana’s name was Marya in Ul Qoma. The caller feels he is in danger and Borlu should investigate the Beszel underground. Borlu believes the caller. It means though that if he pursues the case, he will be in breach, he cannot investigate a case that originates from Ul Qoma.
Being in breach carries significant consequences, so Borlu must be careful if he wants to catch the murderer of Fulana. He pursues the case as far as he can.
Recommendation
City and the City by China Mieville is a challenging novel to read, but it is a great novel. Once the reader understands the relationship between the two cities and the meaning of the word breach, then the novel makes sense. Borlu was the perfect noir detective. His conflict was real and earned. I’d like to rerad more of the novels of China Mieville in the future.
Links
This is the link to the Goodreads page of City and the City by China Mieville
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4703581-the-city-the-city
Another book that reminds me of City and the City is The Fifth Season. Both books are Science Fiction but are on the boundary with Fantasy because they explore concepts that have an element that cannot be explained through physics.
In The Fifth Season by NK Jemisin, Essun, Damaya, and Syenite, all face hard choices in the Broken Earth of the Stillness. Will they survive?