Sam Vimes is a copper. He walks the streets of Ankh-Morpork, the Discworld’s largest and most corrupt city, and he arrests people. When we first meet him in Guards! Guards!, he commands a night watch of three men, patrols streets no one cares about, and drinks to forget. By the end of the series, he’s a duke, a commander, and the most dangerous man in the city. He still thinks of himself as a copper.
Pratchett used Vimes to explore law, justice, and the difference between them. Vimes doesn’t trust the powerful, including himself. He carries a demon of rage he calls “the Beast,” which he keeps chained through sheer will. His defining quality is his refusal to compromise on certain lines, even when crossing them would be easier.
The City Watch books trace Vimes’s rise alongside the Watch’s transformation from a joke into a functioning police force. They’re funny, sharp, and occasionally moving. Night Watch, where Vimes travels back in time to train his younger self during a revolution, is often called Pratchett’s best novel.
Vimes appears in eight main novels and has cameos throughout Discworld. Start with Guards! Guards! and follow publication order.
Reading Order
See the complete Discworld reading order for all books in the series, including the City Watch arc.