Sometimes you read a book, suspend your disbelief and utterly buy into the conceit, no matter how unlikely the premise may seem.

And that's how I felt about China Miéville,'s The City and the City.

In essence, the book is a straightforward police procedural.

Inspector Tyador Borlú, of the Extreme Crime Squad in the fictional European city-state of Bes?el, investigates the murder of Mahalia Geary, a foreign student found dead with her face disfigured, in a Bes?el street.

He soon learns that Geary had been involved in the complex politics involving Bes?el and its 'twin city' of Ul Qoma.

But these are no ordinary cities.

They actually occupy more or less the same geographical space but are perceived as two different places.

A resident of one city must 'unsee' events taking place in the other city – even if they are a matter of feet away.

Ignoring the separation, even by accident, is called 'breaching' and is the worst crime people from the two cities can commit.

With such a difficult premise, I did wonder how this strange dystopian world could be brought to the screen.

But the BBC has made a pretty good fist of it with the four-part series starring David Morrissey as the dogged Borlú and Mandeep Dhillon as his foul-mouthed sidekick Constable Corwi.

There's lots of blurry soft focus around the edges to distinguish the 'border' between the two cities where the viewer in effect colludes with the 'unseeing'.

And set dressing also helps – Bes?el is a down-at-heel, orange and brown version of post Soviet era utilitarianism while Ul Qoma is all skyscrapers and neon – despite the fact they are occupying more or less the same physical space.

Most of the filming took place in Liverpool, Wirral and Manchester and it's not too difficult to spot some of the north west's more prominent buildings, which I did find a little disconcerting at times.

I also had the advantage of having read the book, not so my wife who managed to watch half of the first episode before giving up on it.

I think it's worth sticking with.

The final broadcast episode is on Friday but all four episodes are available on BBC iPlayer.