I read this for the Fall 2025 Science Fiction and Fantasy course I took at the U of MN.
I was not enthralled by this book. In fact, at about the halfway point, I misplaced it and did not finish it. I still haven’t found it, though no doubt it will turn up somewhere.
[Spoiler follows]
The City & the City is a competent murder mystery, but with the fantastical twist that the City is a place where an analog of the City in a parallel universe is partially visible and sometimes accessible. Inhabitants of the City have trained themselves to not see traces of the parallel city – if they give it too much attention something will happen — a mysterious force or set of police or something – will appear and remove everyone who was implicated or involved in noticing/acting in the parallel world. Yet, in spite of this, or perhaps because of it, there is an officially managed gateway between the two versions of the City, though much bureaucracy is involved in moving from one side to another.
The murder which drives the plot — well, at least the plot for the half of the book I’ve read — appears to have been committed in the parallel city, and then the body deposited in the other city. This brings police from both ‘sides’ together to investigate what happened. That had just begun to happen when I lost the book…
While it’s an interesting set up, and while the writing is well done, I found (as is often the case) that I don’t really care for the protagonists. There’s one chief detective (or maybe he’s an inspector) and he’s gotten a younger colleague involved to assist him — but he seems to have no life other than work, and no real friends. The most emotional life he shows has to do with his colleague, but even there it is pretty sparse (though perhaps something richer will develop as the book proceeds).
While I finish the book when I find it again? I’m not sure… I don’t find that I care very much or feel very curious.
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