China Mieville is a challenging read on a good day. His urban fantasy grotesques immerse you in foreign worlds and it often takes 100 pages to get one's head above water. The City & The City is no different: even though it's a police procedural centered on a girl's murder, it is set in a bizarrely divided city, where half of the residents are obligated to not notice the other half (and vice-versa).

I struggled at times to follow the action, but as with Mieville's other novels, I enjoyed the ride.