The chief was a thuggish man: nervous, Cutter saw, because he knew he was a mediocrity become by kink of history a ruler. - China Miéville

It wasn’t a city anymore, it was a collection of broken places separated by war without politics or acquisition so not war at all really but something more pathological.

Faint cries and industrial drones sounded from dark windows set into its brick banks, some of them below the high-water mark. Prisons and torture-chambers and workshops, and their bastard hybrids, the punishment factories, where the condemned were Remade.

If a murderer stalked the mansions of Flag Hill or Canker Wedge, would the militia waste any time or spare resources? Why, no! The hunt for Jack Half-a-Prayer proves it! And yet, when the Eyespy Killer strikes in Smog Bend, nothing happens! Another eyeless victim was fished from the Tar last week-bringing the number killed to five-and not a word from the blue-clad bullies in the Spike. We say: it’s one law for the rich, another for the poor!