I really liked this book because Mieville combines a police procedural with elements of ethnography (see here for a quick definition http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnography) and he combines them brilliantly to lampoon some very influential but over-used concepts, particularly Homi Bhabha’s concept of ‘interstitiality’. Check this out for a quick run-down of the man and his work http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homi_K._Bhabha . But don’t confuse his work with that of Homi J. Bhabha the Indian physicist http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homi_J._Bhabha .

More to the point, Mieville bases this book on a central notion – if not the central conceit– of the social sciences: to know the full landscape and nature of your society is real power. The story demonstrates that this knowledge is true power, and that partial knowledge can be deadly. What many #1Book140 bookies found tedious is where Mieville took great narrative pains to demonstrate how the incomplete, contingent, daily-use-kind-of knowledge we have of our roles, our community and of our place in society is so fragmented and incomplete that we *may* only sense the whole. I use that term purposely here because Mieville is painstaking in demonstrating how effective national and legal boundaries are in circumscribing our lives and minds. Yet they are absurdly byzantine and arbitrary to an independent or objective observer.

Combining these aspects of contemporary ethnography with a police procedural is brilliant because it shows how social structures and forces weave to *create* life and death situations. ‘Breach’ has power over two nations only because of the byzantine divide they’ve created to protect their distinctness and their national sovereignty. Breach has no power or jurisdiction against the incursion of global business, tourism, immigration and widely-available digital media. This clearly hi-lights the recursive nature of the ‘power’ of Breach. It doesn’t protect against breaches of the peace, or against breaches from outside powers. It guards only against breaches in the perception-filter the residents of the dual city-state must employ to live there. Residents can talk about each other, can debate unification in certain circumstances, but to visually/perceptively acknowledge their ultra-national neighbours is against the law and enforceable by Breach.

I don’t believe that Breach has supernatural powers, nor do I think that Mieville hints at this. I think CM hi-lights the fear people have of the unknown — things from the shadows real or imagined — and how groups and individuals use that universal human emotion to their advantage.

Without any spoilers, this brings us back to the mystery at hand. About half-way through the book I began to wonder if Mieville is entirely playing with his readers. Perhaps the whole thing is about a simple case of em-Beszel-ment? Mieville uses a lot of references to Canadian places. For example, Bowden is the name of the medium-security prison in western Canada and noted for housing some of our most infamous frauds. As a Canadian, it’s cool to have our place names, universities, and companies lampooned. Parody is one of our national pastimes, check out CBC.ca.

I really enjoyed reading this book; though as a group we read it at a very busy time of the year. I hope that others pick up the book and read more from a gifted and unusual talent like China Mieville.

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