Snuff

Pratchett’s 39th Discworld novel (after 2010’s I Shall Wear Midnight) brings back fan favorite Sam Vimes, the cynical yet extraordinarily honorable Ankh-Morpork City Watch commander also known (if unenthusiastically) as His Grace Sir Samuel, the Duke of Ankh. Vimes faces an onerous task: two weeks off in the country at his wife’s family estate. It’s not the thought of spending time with his beloved Sybil or precocious six-year-old Young Sam that bothers him; it’s just that a copper can’t stop being a copper. Fortunately, even in this conservative hamlet, there’s plenty of skullduggery to investigate, beginning with the brutal murder of a goblin girl. With the help of untried local constable Feeney Upshot and gentleman’s gentleman Willikens, Vimes takes on a fiendish murderer as well as the case for (in)human rights and social justice in this lively outing, complete with sly shout-outs to Jane Austen and gritty police procedurals. (Oct.)