Just finished The City and The City, by China Mieville. Actually started it a while ago, and put it aside to read something else. Restarted it Wednesday, finished it this morning. I found it a very good read.
The story is a detective/cop story. There's a crime. There's an investigation which everyone thinks will be passed over to a higher power but isn't. The investigation then only gets somewhere by one policeman going against proper procedure to get results. There's a hint of a shadowy organisation controlling things. There's secondments and co-opting. Corrupt politicians and dodgy corporate dealings.
So far, so very normal. The twist is that the story takes place in two cities which are actually superimposed over the top of each other - the city and the city of the title. Crossing between the two without authorisation is illegal, and is called breach, or breaching. In some places the two cities are cross-hatched, visible over each other if the respective citizens didn't unsee the other side. The whole setting got under my skin, aided by the subtle-ish steampunk elements. And for some reason the writing style seemed reminiscent of Peter Ackroyd
