Pratchett, Terry - Feet of Clay (audio CD)

Terry Pratchett, Feet of Clay

…He hated the very idea of the world being divided into the shaved and the shavers. Or those who wore the shiny boots and those who cleaned the mud off them. Every time he saw Willikins the butler fold his, Vimes’s, clothes, he suppressed a terrible urge to kick the butler’s shiny backside as an affront to the dignity of man.

— (Terry Pratchett, Feet of Clay)

The original working title for this book was Words in the Head.
“Feet of Clay” is a biblical reference. The Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar had a dream in which he saw a statue whose head was made of gold, but lower down the statue the materials got progressively more base, until the feet were “part of iron, part of clay”; the statue was shattered and destroyed by being struck on the feet, its weakest point. Hence, colloquially, the expression “feet of clay” has come to mean that someone regarded as an idol has a hidden weakness.

 A Discworld Howdunnit
Who’s murdering harmless old men? Who’s poisoning the Patrician?
As autumn fogs hold Ankh-Morpork in their grip, the City Watch have to track down a murderer who can’t be seen.
Maybe the golems know something – but the solemn man of clay, who work all day and night and are never any trouble to anyone, have started to commit suicide…
It’s not as if the Watch hasn’t got problems of its own. There’s a werewolf suffering from Pre-Lunar Tension. Corporal Nobbs is hobnobbing with the nobs, and there’s something really strange about the new dwarf recruit, especially his earings and eyeshadow.
Who can you trust when there are mobs on the streets and plotters in the dark and all the clues point the wrong way?
In the gloom of the night, Watch Commander Sir Samuel Vimes finds that the truth might not be out there at all.
It may be in amongst the words in the head
A chilling tale of poison and pottery.