The denizens of Ankh-Morpork fancy they've seen just about everything. But then comes the Ankh-Morpork Times, struggling scribe William de Worde's upper-crust, newsletter turned Discworld's first paper of record. An ethical joulnalist, de Worde has a proclivity for investigating stories -- a nasty habit that soon creates powerful enemies eager to stop his presses. And what better way than to start the Inquirer, a titillating (well, what else would...

Not even in Alpine, Washington, could the death of octogenarian Jack Froland be considered big news--except by his drinking buddies at Mugs Ahoy. But that suddenly changes when in the middle of his funeral, Jack's widow hysterically insists that he was murdered. Emma Lord, publisher of The Alpine Advocate, who is already investigating a threatening letter received by the town's beautiful blonde judge, now suspects she has two hot stories to unravel....

"New York, August 1896. A "hot wave" has settled on the city with no end in sight, leaving tempers short and the streets littered with dead horses felled by the heat. At Police Headquarters, the gruff, politically ambitious commissioner Theodore Roosevelt has been struggling to reform his notoriously corrupt department. Meanwhile, the yellow press is ready to pounce on the peccadilloes of the Four Hundred, the city's social elite--the better to sell...