Snuff is the 39th novel in the Discworld series, written by Terry Pratchett. It was published on 11 October 2011 in the United States, and 13 October 2011 in the United Kingdom. The book is the third-fastest-selling novel in the United Kingdom since records began, having sold over 55,000 copies in the first three days.
The book is the eighth City Watch story and is based largely around Commander Sir Sam Vimes. Pratchett emphasised that the word 'snuff' has "at least two meanings".
Synopsis
Commander Sam Vimes is forced by his wife, Lady Sybil, to take a holiday with their son, Young Sam, at her family's mansion Crundells. After a short time of enjoying his holiday, he discovers that the rural community has a dark past with the resident goblins, humanoid lifeforms that live in caves nearby. Vimes finds out that the son of Lord Rust has been enslaving goblins to force them to work on his tobacco plantations in Howondaland, allowing him to manufacture cigars cheaply that are then smuggled to Ankh-Morpork. After teaming up with the local constable, a young man called Upshot, Vimes manages to arrest those responsible for the crime.
In the end, thanks to his wife's organisational skills and powers of persuasion, goblins are recognised as citizens by all major nations and rulers. Rust's son is disinherited and exiled to Fourecks, where Lord Vetinari assures an eye will be kept on him.
Plot
Commander Vimes is persuaded by his wife Sybil and Lord Vetinari to take a family holiday at the Ramkins' countryside estate; Willikins, Vimes's thug-turned-butler, accompanies them. As Vimes arrives in the countryside, despite the silence and tranquillity, he senses crime.
At a dinner with all the local 'nobs' organised by Sybil, Vimes discovers the distaste the local people have towards goblins, calling them vermin and a nuisance, with a pub called the Goblin's Head having an eponymous stuffed and mounted goblin's head. At the dinner, he also meets Miss Felicity Beedle, a children's book author whose works Young Sam is a fan of, and he feels that she has something she wants to tell him about a possible crime.
The next day he participates in a hand-to-hand fight with the hot-headed local blacksmith, Jethro. After Vimes wins the fight, he arranges to meet with Jethro at Dead Man's Copse on Hangman Hill at midnight, as Jethro has something to tell Vimes about the mistreatment of goblins. Lord Rust then approaches Vimes and tells him that he will not find any crimes in the country, also warning him that he has no jurisdiction outside of Ankh-Morpork.
That night, Vimes and Willikins go up to Hangman Hill to find Jethro, but instead, they find the severed finger of a goblin girl and lots of blood. The next morning, the young local chief constable, Feeney Upshot, sworn to enact the will of the local Board of Magistrates rather than to uphold the law, arrives at Ramkin Hall to arrest Vimes for the murder of the blacksmith, who has gone missing. Vimes is considered the most likely suspect because he was in a fight with the blacksmith the night before, and he was overheard making plans to meet Jethro on Hangman Hill. However, Vimes refuses arrest, instead taking on the task of mentoring Upshot and teaching him to be a better copper, and together they start an investigation on the case.
Vimes and Upshot, led by a goblin named Stinky, find the goblins' abode in a cave. They enter into pitch-black darkness, and Vimes realises he can see perfectly in the darkness, a skill rewarded to him by the Summoning Dark (a demon that briefly possessed him in the novel Thud!. It is implied that the 'dark' and Vimes now have a mutual respect).
In the cave he meets with the goblin chief who leads him to a goblin's corpse, the same goblin that was killed on Hangman Hill. Vimes ventures further in the cave in search of the blacksmith, but he instead finds Miss Beedle, who, because of adoptive goblin ancestry, spends her spare time teaching goblin girls how to read and communicate with humans.
Upshot and Vimes then pay a visit to Mr Flutter; he is known as the 'local trouble' and seems to be involved in most crimes in the area. They capture Flutter, but he is unwilling to say much. Vimes then notices a cellar in his house and enters it; surrounded by darkness he is able to communicate to the Summoning Dark. From the Summoning Dark, who represents all darkness, he is able to get a witness account of what happened on Hangman Hill the other night and relays this to Flutter, who then tells Vimes that he protested against the killing of the goblin-girl, and whose murderer was a Mr Stratford, a man working for Gravid Rust, the 'entrepreneurial' son of Lord Rust.