Book Home Books Information Night Watch

Night Watch

Night Watch is the 28th novel in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, published in 2002. The hero of the novel is Sir Samuel Vimes, commander of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch.

The cover illustration of the British edition, by Paul Kidby, is a parody of Rembrandt's painting Night Watch.

Night Watch makes references to the Spanish Inquisition ( the "Unmentionables") and the French Revolution. The entire plot is a parody of the opera Les Miserables.

On the morning of the 30th anniversary of the Glorious Twenty-Fifth of May (and as such the anniversary of the death of John Keel, Vimes' hero and former mentor), Vimes is caught in a magical explosion while pursuing Carcer, a notorious serial murderer. He awakens to find that he has been rescued by Miss Palm (whom Vimes knows as Mrs Palm, Head of the Guild of Seamstresses). He determines that he has somehow been sent back in time.

Vimes leaves to speak to the wizards at Unseen University about returning home, but is arrested for breaking curfew at arrow-point by a younger version of himself. He finds Carcer incarcerated in the cell beside his, before Carcer is released (who then joins the Unmentionables, a secret police carrying out the paranoid whims of the Patrician of the time, Lord Winder).

When he is taken up to be interrogated by the captain, time is frozen by Lu-Tze and he tells Vimes what has happened and that he must assume the identity of his mentor John Keel (who was to have arrived that day but was murdered by Carcer). It is stated that the event which caused Vimes and Carcer to be sent into the past was a major temporal shattering, the implication being the cause of Vimes going through time is that he was caught in the explosion at the same instant the glass clock struck and time froze in Thief of Time. Vimes then returns to the office, time restarts and he successfully convinces the captain that he is Keel.

Young Vimes believes Vimes to be the real Keel, allowing Vimes to teach Young Vimes the lessons for which Vimes idolised Keel. Essentially this means that Vimes taught and idolised himself, not Keel, although alternate histories and the "Trousers of Time" mean this may not be the case.

The novel climaxes in the Revolution, hinted at since the start of the book. Vimes barricades a few streets to keep people safe from the rebels and soldiers, but the barricades are pushed forward gradually during the night to encompass the surrounding streets, until Vimes is under control of a quarter of the city of Ankh-Morpork--incidentally, the quarter with unimportant things like slaughterhouses and grain stores.

The ruler, Lord Winder, is assassinated (by Havelock Vetinari) and the new Patrician Lord Snapcase calls for a complete amnesty. However, he sees 'Keel' as a threat and sends Carcer and the palace guard to murder the Night Watch. Several policemen are killed in the battle, explaining why they are not seen in other books; Vimes manages to fight off the attack until he can grab Carcer, at which point they are returned to the future. Vimes' son is born, with the help of Doctor 'Mossy' Lawn (who Vimes met while in the past), and it is revealed that Patrician Vetinari suspected all along that Vimes was 'Keel', but wasn't ever quite sure about it. Vimes finally arrests Carcer.