Snuff

The new Discworld novel from the master features the popular Sam Vimes, Commander of the City Watch.

According to the writer of the best-selling crime novel ever to have been published in the city of Ankh-Morpork, it is a truth universally acknowledged that a policeman taking a holiday would barely have had time to open his suitcase before he finds his first corpse. And Commander Sam Vimes of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch is on holiday in the pleasant and innocent countryside, but not for him a mere body in the wardrobe. There are many, many bodies and an ancient crime more terrible than murder.

He is out of his jurisdiction, out of his depth, out of bacon sandwiches, and occasionally snookered and out of his mind, but never out of guile. Where there is a crime there must be a finding, there must be a chase and there must be a punishment.

They say that in the end all sins are forgiven. But not quite all.

TERRY PRATCHETT is the acclaimed creator of the Discworld series, the first of which, The Colour of Magic, was published in 1983. Worldwide sales of his books are now 65 million, and they have been translated into 37 languages. Terry Pratchett was knighted for services to literature in 2009.