Beszel and Ul Qoma are two entirely different cities: one, grubby and loud; the other, rich and artistic. When Inspector Tyador Borlú of the Beszel Extreme Crime Squad gets involved in a new murder case, he finds himself straddling both cities as increasingly bizarre clues reveal themselves to him. The only danger is Beszel and Ul Qoma exist simultaneously in the same location: twin cities joined by a sense of perspective and dimension. It’s absolutely critical that citizens, and Borlú in particular as a policzai, exercise complete control over “seeing” and “unseeing,” “smelling” and “unsmelling,” “hearing” and “unhearing”--the methods taught to citizens and visitors of both cities where one must see only what exists in one city at a time. To acknowledge the existence of the other in anything but an academic or conceptual context is to invoke the wrath of Breach.( Read the rest! )