MEN AT ARMS
by Terry Pratchett
In Pratchett's latest Discworld fantasy romp (Lords and Ladies, p. 1068), Captain Vimes of Ankh-Morpork's City Watch is retiring in order to marry the city's richest lady and become a Gentleman. The Watch, you see, thanks to affirmative action, has been forced to hire both dwarfs and trolls—they loathe each other- -and even women (actually, a she-werewolf). But before he goes, Vimes, with Corporal Carrot—he's probably the lost heir to the throne of Ankh-Morpork—and Gaspode the talking dog must solve a series of horrible murders involving a strange explosive device, meddling Assassins, and the doddering denizens of the Unseen University. An about average installment in this always entertaining, sometimes hysterically funny series.