The Auditors strike again: They decided to eliminate the Discworld's equivalent to Santa Claus because he does not fit into their view of the universe. They meet with Lord Downey, head of the Assassin's guild, and commission the services of Mr. Teatime (pronounced Te-ah-tim-eh), whose particular brand of insane genius makes him an ideal candidate for the assassination of the Hogfather and other anthropomorphic personifications. Death decides to take over for the Hogfather in order to make people continue to believe in him, wearing a long red cloak and a beard, but things start to become complicated because he is taking the children's wishes too literally. Meanwhile, his granddaughter Susan must find out what's happened to the real Hogfather. She visits his Castle of Bones only to find the hung-over 'oh god of hangovers' whom she rescues before the castle collapses due to the lack of belief. In an attempt to cure the god, Susan visits the Unseen University where it is discovered that several of these minor gods and beings are being created. The university's computer, Hex, explains that there is 'spare belief' in the world due to the absence of the Hogfather which is being used to create them. Susan and the god of hangovers then travel to the land of the tooth fairy where they discover that Teatime has 'killed' the Hogfather by collecting millions of children's teeth and using them to control the children, forcing them to stop believing in the hogfather. Upon throwing the Assassin off the tower and apparently killing him, Susan clears the teeth away and brings back the Hogfather by rescuing him from the Auditors, who have taken the forms of dogs. They cannot return to their original state and so cannot stop themselves falling off a cliff.

Another one of the 'Death learns about humanity and someone else has to do his job' stories, the 4th version, but it's done with such style and wit that I can almost forgive TP. The wizards side story makes up for the recycled main story, Ridcully and the senior faculty are some of the funniest characters in the series, the 'new gods' are all interesting, from the verucca gnome to the oh god of hangovers to the Cheerful Fairy and the Sock Eater. For some reason the Cheerful Fairy was missed out of the recent adaptation (along with the Beggers Guild and even the Death of Rats is sidelined to a single cameo) The Christmassy feel echoes throughout the book and yet the ending is much more paganistic and feral, with blood magic being needed to make the sun rise etc.