With a name like Moist von Lipwig, you can hardly blame a man for pretending to be someone else. But for Lipwig, aka Abert Spangler and a dozen other aliases, the mascarades are over, the pretending is at and end. We first meet the conman in one of Vetinari’s cells, awaiting his execution, his hopes of escape dashed by warders with a cruel sense of humour.

Yet, not long after the execution of “Albert Spangler” Moist is given a choice: be executed, or become the Postmaster of Ankh-Morpork’s crumbling postal service. Sold as a gift from an angel, Moist only later discovers it was never much of a choice, given the past four postmasters died untimely deaths.

With a Post Office crammed full of undelivered letters, and staffed only by Junior Postmaster Groat and Stanley the apprentice, both barely insane, Moist really does not have his work cut out of him.

Lipwig soon discovers running is not an option when he is introduced to Pump, his golem parole officer, whose sole purpose is to keep him in check. There is not escaping his duties, no matter how dangerous they turn out to be. In his attempts to re-open the Post Office Moist comes into direct confrontation with Gilt, the ruthless owner of the Grand Trunk clacks network – and a man not too unlike himself.

The clacks are falling into disrepair because Gilt and his banker friends are unwilling to spend money on maintenance or repair. Messages are costly and often delayed, because the Grand Trunk has a monopoly on the clacks, and workers are falling to their deaths from the tall clacks towers due to poor maintenance.

One person who is angry about this is Adora Belle Dearheart, a woman who hires out golems at the Golem Trust. She dresses severely, smokes excessively, treats everyone with disdain and can see right through Moist. Naturally Moist becomes smitten with her. In fact Lipwig is almost pathologically inclined to raise the stakes. He’s bold, cunning, and utterly charismatic, and he finds himself taunting and challenging Gilt at every available opportunity. At heart he’s a con artist and an anti-hero, but he has a conscience of sorts and he’s a dynmanic character.

Going Postal is one of Terry Pratchett’s best. Filled to the brim with puns and amusing character sketches, making clever analysis of the psychology of hope. For Lipwig false hope is his stock in trade, but he’s not the only one with a talent for using it to manipulate people. Although this book is more thoughtful than it is adrenaline-fuelled, Going Postal is never dull, and as sharp as one of Apprentice Postman Stanley’s pins.