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Section 1, Chapters 1-4

The following version of this book was used to create this Lesson Plan: Miéville, China. The City & The City. Del Rey, 2010.

Section 1, Chapter 1

• This chapter marks the first chapter in the first section of the novel: “Beszel.”

• The novel begins as the first-person narrator, an inspector, arrived at a crime scene.

• A young woman’s body was found “between a low derelict tower and a skateboard park ringed by big drum-shaped trash bins” (3) and had been hidden under a mattress.

• The inspector took charge of the scene and began speaking with other officers.

• The inspector learned a group of teenagers discovered the victim; the teens were “chewers,” or those who chew a drug called “feld” (5).

• When the inspector spoke with the teenagers, the reader is given his full name and title: Inspector Tyador Borlú with the Extreme Crime Squad.

• The teens described seeing a...

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