This was a beautiful combination of murder mystery and fantasy. 
 The City and The City starts off like a normal detective novel. There's a murder, and Inspector Borlu of the Beszel police is supposed to solve it. What Borlu soon realizes is that this is not a normal murder. The murder took place in another country, the other city. Ul Qoma. The body was only dumped in Beszel. 
 Borlu is sent to Ul Qoma to investigate. However, traveling to Ul Qoma isn't as easy as jumping on an airplane. Ul Qoma occupies the same physical space as Beszel, which certainly complicates things. 
 The writing definitely takes some getting used to, with a strange yet fitting combination of run-on sentences and fragments of sentences scattered throughout. The book kept me guessing the entire time, and the twists towards the end caught me off guard in a good way. If you're willing to do a little thinking, this is definitely worth the read.