This is the second of 6 Hugo Nominees for 2010 that I’m reading and I enjoyed this book more for being a mystery-thriller than a sci-fi book. The concept of having two Cities that "unsee" the other was fascinating.
From goodreads.com: 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. But as he investigates, the evidence points to conspiracies far stranger and more deadly than anything he could have imagined.
Borlú must travel from the decaying Beszel to the only metropolis on Earth as strange as his own. This is a border crossing like no other, a journey as psychic as it is physical, a shift in perception, a seeing of the unseen. His destination is Beszel’s equal, rival, and intimate neighbor, the rich and vibrant city of Ul Qoma. With Ul Qoman detective Qussim Dhatt, and struggling with his own transition, Borlú is enmeshed in a sordid underworld of rabid 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 and those they care about more than their lives.
I thought the mystery itself was a bit weak in substance and never really did feel that the antagonists were “rabid nationalists”. They came across more as disenchanted citizens who only knew how to aggravate the wasps nest. The first 100 pages or so are also a bit slow – world building so to speak, but then the storyline does a pretty good job of subtly shifting from the world to the complexity of the problem Borlu faces. The story was perfect in length at 330 (+/-) pages and didn’t get mired down in complex description and imagery as some of his other books do.
Recommended if you like mysteries or thriller’s, may be disappointed if you are expecting more science fiction.
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