The fifth elephant - Tak's Reading Room

321 pages

English language

Published Nov. 6, 2000 by HarperCollins.

ISBN:: 978-0-06-105157-9

(1 review)

Everyone knows that the world is flat, and supported on the backs of four elephants. But weren't there supposed to be five? Indeed there were. So where is it?...When duty calls. Commander Vimes of the Ankh-Morpork constabulary answers. Even when he doesn't want to. He's been "invited" to attend a royal function as both detective and diplomat. The one role he relishes; the other requires, well, ruby tights. Of course where cops (even those clad in tights) go, alas, crime follows. An attempted assassination and a theft soon lead to a desperate chase from the low halls of Discworld royalty to the legendary fat mines of Uberwald, where lard is found in underground seams along with tusks and teeth and other precious ivory artifacts. It's up to the dauntless Vimes -- bothered as usual by a familiar cast of Discworld inhabitants (you know, trolls, dwarfs, werewolves, vampires and such) -- …

Everyone knows that the world is flat, and supported on the backs of four elephants. But weren't there supposed to be five? Indeed there were. So where is it?...When duty calls. Commander Vimes of the Ankh-Morpork constabulary answers. Even when he doesn't want to. He's been "invited" to attend a royal function as both detective and diplomat. The one role he relishes; the other requires, well, ruby tights. Of course where cops (even those clad in tights) go, alas, crime follows. An attempted assassination and a theft soon lead to a desperate chase from the low halls of Discworld royalty to the legendary fat mines of Uberwald, where lard is found in underground seams along with tusks and teeth and other precious ivory artifacts. It's up to the dauntless Vimes -- bothered as usual by a familiar cast of Discworld inhabitants (you know, trolls, dwarfs, werewolves, vampires and such) -- to solve the puzzle of the missing pachyderm. Which of course he does. After all, solving mysteries is his job.

9 editions

bookafnd reviewed The fifth elephant by Terry Pratchett

light copaganda, discworld as always

4 stars

something that always strikes me about the portrayal of policing in Discworld is that the Watch is often portrayed as little better than a nuisance. But for Plot reasons there's always a diabolical scheme brewing in the background that needs Vimes's detective skills to uncover. This ultimately serves as a justification for the continued existence of the Watch. Real life, of course, has no Wolfgangs.

divorced from my distaste for cop apologia, though, it's a very good discworld book.

Subjects

Vimes, Samuel (Fictitious character) -- Fiction.
Discworld (Imaginary place) -- Fiction.