Death is missing - presumed ... er ... gone.

Which leads to the kind of chaos you always get when an important public service is withdrawn.

Ghosts and poltergeists fill up the Discworld. Dead Rights activist Reg Shoe - 'You Don't Have to Take This Lying Down' - suddenly has more work than he had ever dreamed of. And newly deceased wizard Windle Poons wakes up in his coffin to find that he has come back as a corpse.

But it's up to Windle and the members of Ankh-Morpork's rather unfrightening group of undead (*) to save the world for theliving.

Meanwhile, on a little farm far, far away, a tall, dark stranger is turning out to be really good with a scythe. There's a harvest to be got in. And a different battle to be fought.

(*) Arthur Winkings, for example, became a vampire after being bitten by a lawyer. Schleppel the bogeyman would be better at his job if he wasn't agoraphobic and frightened of coming out of the closet. And Mr Ixolite is a banshee with a speech impediment, so instead of standing on the roof and screaming when there's a death in the house he writes 'OooEeeOooEeeOoo' on a piece of paper and pushes it under the door.