Stand Alone Fantasy Titles, August 2012

In the city of Beszel, even something as seemingly simple as the investigation of a murdered woman is not nearly as easy as it should be. The wrinkle is having to journey to the neighboring city of Ul Qoma. Each is peopled with unificationists who seek to combine the two cities and nationalists who intend to destroy the other. And the people of neither city are permitted to recognize the others. That makes it more difficult when investigators from each city join forces to uncover the murderer and along the way discover something more disturbing that lies between the two cities. Miéville is one of the hot new writers on the scene and while the majority of his work has been outstanding, nothing has compared to The City & The City. Segregation, revolution, and the lengths people go to uphold their own social ideas and realities echo in this fantasy dipped in the color of mystery.