A total comeback
5 stars
Content warning Spoilers for the narrative premise
The last few books from the City watch series felt a little rushed and tackling too vast a scope to properly address it in their pagespan, but this one was focused. Less than a week of narrative time, all extremely detailed and with full introspective intrusive notes directly from Vimes' brain. Also a bit nostalgic, taking the protagonist back in a literal kind of way. The only two problems I have with this book are: 1. that the "nemesis" Carcer is simply used as a mirror to Vimes. Now, this isn't per se a downside, but I felt more could be done with him. 2. It's a Vimes only story. He's the complete protagonist, also a side character technically, but anyone other than Reg there isn't much time to shine at all.