Feet Of Clay [Paperback]

"Feet of Clay" is the nineteenth novel in Terry Pratchett's hugely popular Discworld series, was first published in 1996 and is the third to focus on Sam Vimes and Ankh-Morpork's City Guard.

Sam is the now the Commander of the City Guard, and - having married Lady Ramkin - a member of the nobility. It's fair to say he's not your typical hero : he doesn't like the Undead (particularly vampires), Assassins (they keep trying to kill him) and - in keeping with an old family tradition - Kings (not an ideal musketeer then). Sam has quit drinking - though it's still something of a struggle - and smokes the occasional cigar to ease the blow.

Although numbers among the ranks are rising, Sam tends to rely on those he knows best. His most capable officer is Captain Carrot - who was born human, although raised as a dwarf. Carrot is an incredibly innocent and very honest character and is widely believed to be Ankh-Morpork's rightful King. (Sam has - to date - refrained from beheading him). Carrot's girlfriend, Angua, is also a member of the City Guard though - being a werewolf - she isn't quite so popular. Sergeant Detritus, a troll who deals roughly with troll drug-dealers, seems a natural - not to mention likeable - cop, though Sergeant Colon and Corporal Nobbs (a confirmed slacker and probably human) are the most experienced officers. The one newcomer is Cheery Littlebottom, an ex-alchimist dwarf who becomes quite useful in the City Guard's newly established forensics department. (Cheery left the Guild of Alchemists after, accidentally, blowing up the Guild Council. Alchemy is an unusual profession for a dwarf, though Cheery - as it turns out - isn't your usual dwarf).

"Feet of Clay" gives Sam a good, old-fashioned mystery to solve - a mystery that includes a couple of rather unusual murders. One of the victims is Father Tubelcek, who Sam considers to be one of the neatest corpses he's ever seen : eyes closed, arms neatly folded across his chest...and a slip of paper with some strange writing on it in his mouth. The other victim was Mr Hopkinson, curator at the Dwarf Bread Museum. Dwarf bread is much more useful on the battlefield than on the breakfast table, and Hopkinson had unfortunately been beaten to death with a loaf. There is a little white clay and a suspicion of Golems hanging around, but the murders are puzzling...however, it's difficult to focus on a puzzle, when you've also got to investigate the poisoning of the Patrician. (He's surviving, but only barely). The difficulties aren't confined to professional matters - there's even bad news for both Sam and Nobby at a personal level. Following a visit to the Royal College of Heralds, Sam learns he is ineligible for a Coat of Arms. (An ancestor, Old Stoneface, killed Ankh-Morpork's last king). To make matters even worse, news of his rejection is delivered by a vampire called Dragon King of Arms. Nobby, on the other hand, is devastated to learn he is Earl of Ankh.

Another very funny book from Pratchett, with a storyline 'underneath' it all that your standard murder-mystery writer would love to tell. Excellent stuff, highly recommended !

Thoroughly enjoyable, laugh-out-loud funny. One of Pratchett's best novels. The CD audio version read by Nigel Planer is wonderful! Nigel Planer does an excellent job of giving zany voices to the zany characters. The reading is closer to acting.

The Watch is made of the weirdest bunch of cops you can imagine, including werewolves, dwarves, trolls, gargoyles -- and those are the ordinary ones. If you like mysteries in general, and murder mysteries in particular, then "Feet of Clay" is an offbeat story that you might just enjoy.

First a priest is murdered, and found with a slip of paper in his mouth. Then a curator. And Vimes has no idea how this is happening, or why anyone would kill a couple of harmless old men. To make things worse, he learns that the extremely un-royal Corporal Nobby Nobbs may be the rightful king of Ankh-Morpork (if that doesn't warp your view of reality, nothing will), and that the Patrician is being slowly poisoned -- but no one knows just how the poison is being administered.

The answer to the mysteries may lie in the golems: Not-living-but-not-dead creatures made out of clay, who don't speak and always follow orders. Theoretically they can't kill . But they come under suspicion when, inexplicably, they start destroying themselves as the evidence starts to point toward a golem murderer. However, Vimes soon learns that the conspiracy is far more extensive -- and sinister -- than the golems...

"Feet of Clay" is not merely a murder mystery (although it has one of the coolest ways of murdering a person that I've ever heard of). Pratchett also offers some commentary on society, on what makes a person a person. His handling of the golems is remarkably thought-provoking. And their connection to the attempted murder is also very hard to unravel -- you won't guess who or how or why.

This is, in some ways, more serious at times than his other books; one scene has Vimes exploding over the death of a little child and a cleaning lady. But don't think he's abandond his skewed brand of Discworld humor: the rebelling dwarf, the unsuccessful assassination at the beginning, Nobby's outrageous behavior and seven grandmothes, and especially a vampire with self-destructive tendencies (sunglasses tester, garlic stacker, pencil factory worker, holy water supplier). Not to mention the organizer with the little imp inside.

As always, Vimes is the hard-boiled scrap of sanity among the weirder characters. Angua is, unfortunately, much flatter than the weirder characters; Carrot is his usual likable self, while Nobby gets to act more bizarrely than usual as he is accepted into the upper crust as an aristocrat (a thieving, unsanitary one). Detritus is a likable clod, and we get a new character in Cheery Littlebottom, a dwarf female who wants to start looking like one. And Pratchett outdoes himself with Dorfl, a secretive golem who never speaks or changes expression.

While not Pratchett's best, "Feet of Clay" is a solid mystery/fantasy/commentary with plenty of humor and suspense. Definitely worth looking at.