Low Fantasy

Review: Snuff

Jay
Cover of "Snuff," featuring a soldier in armor at the helm of a boat in the middle of a storm with chickens flying around him.

Title: Snuff

Series: Discworld #39 (Ankh-Morpork City Watch #8)

Author: Terry Pratchett

Genre: Low Fantasy

Trigger Warnings: Pedophilia (mention), animal cruelty (mention), excrement, blood, gore (mild), death, murder, discussion of bodily fluids, risk of drowning

Spoiler Warning: This book is 39th in a series, but I haven’t read any of the other Sam Vimes Discworld books, so any spoilers are purely accidental.

Back Cover:

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…

Review:

This is basically my second foray into the great Sir Terry Pratchett’s Discworld (the first being Equal Rites), and though I didn’t enjoy it quite as much, it was still quite good.

I think part of the reason I didn’t like it as much as I’d hoped to is because it’s much less magical than I expected. It’s a Discworld book, so there’s still some mentions of magic and the question of whether goblins should count as vermin or a sentient race is a major theme. But the main story here is a murder mystery, with a dose of police procedural for good measure. Sam Vimes is forced to take a vacation, and only a few days into his and his family’s stay at his wife’s country house, someone commits murder and tries to frame Vimes for it. So of course he has to solve it and possibly revise his opinions about goblins in the process while still trying to have a good vacation with his wife and young son.

Vimes managed to be a dedicated “copper,” a caring father, and an enjoyable character to read about all at once. And there was a good cast of supporting characters, from the inexperienced local cop to a children’s book writer to Vimes’ “gentleman’s gentleman” Willikins, who was an extremely competent butler except for the fact that he could and would kill you with his bare hands if necessary and somehow managed to be hilarious.

As with everything Terry Pratchett writes, it seems, what seems like a fairly straightforward plot ends up having a ton of layers when you start digging into it. What seems like a fairly simple plot to do a murder and frame Vimes for it ends up having a lot more to it, starting by discovering that the person they thought was the murder victim is not the actual murder victim. And it also has one of those delightful fake endings where everything seems to be neatly wrapped up and yet there’s still an hour left on the audiobook.

Really, my only criticism is the title, which in my opinion is weird and only related to the story in that Vimes occasionally uses tobacco products like snuff (or perhaps it’s a pun on the fact that a murder was committed?). Despite being somewhat dark at times, what with the murder and the treating goblins horribly and all, but overall it’s still a fairly fun murder mystery in the Discworld. It’s not my favorite thing I’ve ever read, mainly because mysteries are not my thing, but I enjoyed it.

The Discworld series:

  1. The Colour of Magic
  2. The Light Fantastic
  3. Equal Rites
  4. Mort
  5. Sourcery
  6. Wyrd Sisters
  7. Pyramids
  8. Guards! Guards!
  9. Eric
  10. Moving Pictures
  11. Reaper Man
  12. Witches Abroad
  13. Small Gods
  14. Lords and Ladies
  15. Men at Arms
  16. Soul Music
  17. Interesting Times
  18. Maskerade
  19. Feet of Clay
  20. Hogfather
  21. Jingo
  22. The Last Continent
  23. Carpe Jugulum
  24. The Fifth Elephant
  25. The Truth
  26. Thief of Time
  27. The Last Hero
  28. The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents
  29. Night Watch
  30. The Wee Free Men
  31. Monstrous Regiment
  32. A Hat Full of Sky
  33. Going Postal
  34. Thud!
  35. Wintersmith
  36. Making Money
  37. Unseen Academicals
  38. I Shall Wear Midnight
  39. Snuff
  40. Raising Steam
  41. The Shepherd’s Crown