WINNER OF THE HUGO, LOCUS, ARTHUR C. CLARKE, AND WORLD FANTASY AWARDS • An inspector must solve a murder in a place where things are not as they seem, in this genre- and mind-bending mystery that reads as if “Philip K. Dick and Raymond Chandler's love child were raised by Franz Kafka” (Los Angeles Times).
“Daring and disturbing . . . Miéville illuminates fundamental and unsettling questions about culture, governance, and the shadowy differences that keep us apart.”—Walter Mosley, author of Devil in a Blue Dress
“An all-time great.” —Literary Hub
When a murdered woman is found in the city of Beszel, somewhere at the edge of Europe, it looks to be a routine case for Inspector Tyador Borlú of the Extreme Crime Squad. To investigate, Borlú must travel from the decaying Beszel to its equal, rival, and intimate neighbor, the vibrant city of Ul Qoma. But this is a border crossing like no other, a journey as psychic as it is physical, a seeing of the unseen.
With Ul Qoman detective Qussim Dhatt, Borlú is enmeshed in a sordid underworld of nationalists intent on destroying their neighboring city, and unificationists who dream of dissolving the two into one. As the detectives uncover the dead woman’s secrets, they begin to suspect a truth that could cost them more than their lives. What stands against them are murderous powers in Beszel and in Ul Qoma: and, most terrifying of all, that which lies between these two cities.
