Jingo recap

When the long-drowned island of Leshp suddenly rises from the sea midway between Ankh-Morpork and the empire of Klatch, both nations claim it and war fever grips the city. During a visit by the Klatchian Prince Khufurah, an assassination attempt throws suspicion in every direction, and Commander Vimes treats it as a crime to be solved rather than an excuse to fight. As Ankh-Morpork's nobles raise a shambolic army and sail to war, Vimes takes the Watch to Klatch to chase the truth, shadowed by the formidable D'reg lawman 71-hour Ahmed. Meanwhile Lord Vetinari, Leonard of Quirm, Colon, and Nobby travel in secret beneath the waves in one of Leonard's inventions. Vimes learns the entire crisis was engineered, the attack on Khufurah arranged from within Klatch's own ruling family to manufacture a reason for war. Confronting the two assembled armies, Vimes arrests everyone for conspiracy to cause a breach of the peace. Leshp conveniently sinks again, the prize vanishes, and the war collapses before it truly begins.

Previously, in earlier books: Sam Vimes rose from a drunken captain of a near-dead Night Watch to become Commander of a revitalized City Watch and, through marriage to the wealthy dragon-breeder Lady Sybil, Duke of Ankh. Under him the Watch has grown to include dwarfs, trolls, a werewolf, and other unusual recruits. Captain Carrot, a human raised by dwarfs, is quietly believed by some to have a claim to Ankh-Morpork's long-vacant throne, but he chooses to remain a watchman serving the city rather than rule it. In earlier cases Vimes foiled schemes to seize power in Ankh-Morpork, including a plot involving manufactured golems and an attempt to poison Lord Vetinari. As this book opens, Vimes is an established, if deeply reluctant, member of the city's ruling circle.

A long-drowned island called Leshp suddenly rises from the sea midway between Ankh-Morpork and the distant empire of Klatch, and both nations immediately claim it. As patriotic anger and talk of war spread through Ankh-Morpork, a Klatchian diplomatic party arrives in the city. Commander Vimes and the City Watch are left caught between rising public hostility toward the visitors and the ordinary duty of keeping the peace.

The war is stopped without a real battle. 71-hour Ahmed, revealed to be Klatch's own equivalent of Vimes, a lawman who polices the desert, produces proof that Prince Cadram arranged the attack on his own brother Khufurah in order to create a martyr and a cause for war. With the conspiracy exposed to both sides and the disputed island of Leshp already sinking back beneath the sea, the reason to fight simply disappears. Lord Vetinari, returning from his secret voyage, resumes control and steers the aftermath to Ankh-Morpork's advantage. Vimes, who refused to let patriotism excuse a murder, returns to being a policeman rather than a soldier. The armies disperse, the crisis passes, and the city settles back into its usual uneasy normality.