Dave Nelson

I read the hard cover version of this book purchased from Amazon.com.

The 39th book in the Discworld series of which I have read them all, most of them multiple times, and loved each and every one. In this novel we follow Commander Vimes on vacation with his wife Lady Sybil in her family’s palatial estate.

Goblin’s, river boats, tobacco, drugs, beautiful music, and a heard of others join together to create a great story as seen from Sam’s hard-boiled point of view as a policeman, as a duke, as a husband, as a father, and as a blackboard monitor.

The words chosen for the telling of this story bothered me a bit though. I do not recall any other Discworld novel having so many “four letter words”. The cussing felt unnecessary and out of place. I consciously now choose to ignore that feature of the book and substitute all of the dialog that I felt objectionable with words and phrases that I find to be more in line with the previous novels of Discworld. And so my review is for my own edited version of this book and not as it was delivered to my door.

I rate this book a 9 out of 10 and highly recommend it to any fan of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld, but this is not the book to begin with. I recommend Guards, Guards or The Color of Magic as your first.