Reading "The City and the City," by Mieville, is like walking into a dream.  Stark realism and a vivid murder investigation starts the tale off as James Patterson might.  The story builds with the investigation, the police-life in the Eastern European country of Beszel and subtle details about a bordering country that is off limits to everyone in Beszel. 

The horrific murder mystery swirls amidst stranger circumstances that build on top of one another bewildering the tenacious Inspector Borlu.  The reader is taken from a point of detailed city cop life to something that is hazy and does not quite make sense in Beszel, though it is not clear just what that is.  It is exactly like being dropped into a dream.  The underworld of the city is exposed in all of its scarred detail, but there is more going on just beyond...there is something weird about the bordering land...