A Discworld take on crime fiction, THE TRUTH features William de Worde, Discworld's first investigative journalist. A job which came about more by accident than desire, but one that he turns out to be remarkedly good at. With assistance from his staff, and the unintentional help of some dark forces who stupidly try to plot the overthrow of Lord Vetinari.

When I was grabbing the blurb for this novel from Goodreads I noticed somebody had posted this quote:

“There are, it has been said, two types of people in the world. There are those who, when presented with a glass that is exactly half full, say: this glass is half full. And then there are those who say: this glass is half empty.

The world belongs, however, to those who can look at the glass and say: What's up with this glass? Excuse me? Excuse me? This is my glass? I don't think so. My glass was full! And it was a bigger glass! Who's been pinching my beer?

And at the other end of the bar the world is full of the other type of person, who has a broken glass, or a glass that has been carelessly knocked over (usually by one of the people calling for a larger glass) or who had no glass at all, because he was at the back of the crowd and had failed to catch the barman's eye. ”

And therein you've got a feeling for the style, and the firmly tongue in cheek manner of observational commentary that inhabits the Discworld novels. THE TRUTH is the 25th novel in the entire series, and the 2nd in the sub-set referred to as "Industrial Revolution". It's funny (as always), it's clever (as always) and I do like William de Worde's character. And the entire supporting cast, although in this one the Guard plays a very small part, and even Vetinari, who is after all, being framed for all sorts of things in an effort to remove him, is somewhat shadowy. Of course, the villain(s) of the piece - Mr Pin and Mr Tulip are exactly the sort of Mr Wint and Mr Kidd character's you'd expect.

Вперше за останні 10 років взяла книгу у бібліотеці і, звісно ж, не пожалкувала. Цікава та актуальна тема, динамічний сюжет, класні персонажі.

Terry Pratchett didn't write many bad books, and this certainly isn't in that small group. The Truth is the story of Discworld's first newspaper, which gets accidentally founded by William de Worde, a timid man who "loves words" and has employed himself by writing a newsletter on goings on in Ankh-Morpork and selling it to a select group of rich people.

After William has a dramatic encounter with a group of dwarves who have created an entirely new way of printing, the group ends up getting dragged into a huge conspiracy that could shake the foundations of the entire city.

The Truth is another one of those Pratchett mysteries (like Feet of Clay and the Fifth Elephant to name a few) where the reader can play along and try to figure out what is actually going on in Ankh-Morpork through a series of subtle and not so subtle clues.

The real strengths of The Times, for me, are some of the wonderful characters the book introduces. Mr. Pin and Mr. Tulip are Discworld versions of hardcore British gangsters from Guy Ritchie movies. They are extremely violent but also quirky: Mr. Tulip is the described as a person who WANTS to have a drug habit, but constantly ends up buying non-drugs instead. I also really enjoyed Otto von Chirek, the vampire photographer who is a little bit too devoted to his art, and ends up going in some very dark (but amusing) places as a result.

Ultimately it feels like The Times is about 85-90% of the way to being an all-time classic Discworld book, and while it doesn't all come together perfectly in the end, it's still a Terry Pratchett book. It's fun to read, quite funny and extremely entertaining, and would almost definitely be one of the best in a series that isn't as star-studded as the Discworld series.

UPDATE AFTER LATEST READ: Having recently listened to Terry's biography, "A Life With Footnotes", this book suddenly makes a lot more sense. I should have figured out much earlier that he was writing from experience, having worked as a newspaper journalist for quite a few years. No wonder so many of the details in the book felt so accurate!