The Jennifer Morgue (Laundry Files, #2)

by Charles Stross

Bob Howard is a computer ubergeek employed by the Laundry, a secret British agency assigned to clean up incursions from other realities caused by the inadvertent manipulation of complex mathematical equations: in other words, magic. In 1975, the CIA used Howard Hughes's Glomar Explorer in a bungled attempt to raise a sunken Soviet submarine in order to access the Jennifer Morgue, an occult device that allows communication with the dead. Now a ruthless billionaire intends to try again, even if by doing so he awakens the Great Old Ones, who thwarted the earlier expedition. It's up to Bob and a collection of British eccentrics even Monty Python would consider odd to stop the bad guy and save the world, while getting receipts for all expenditures or else face the most dreaded menace of all: the Laundry's own auditors.

• ISBN10: 1440660670
• ISBN13: 9781440660672
• Publish Date: 1 January 2009 (first published 1 November 2006)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publisher: Penguin Putnam Inc
• Imprint: Ace Books
• Format: eBook
• Pages: 416
• Language: English

Reviews

[wyvernfriend]

It did keep me engaged but I wasn't really into it. The James Bond subtext was fun, particularly as we saw the Lazenby Bond over the weekend. When Bob Howard goes to a conference in Germany (and I laughed my way through his experiences with the Smart Car on the Autobahn) he's on the beginning of an adventure that will link him to a beautiful assassin and will require a lot of acceptance on his part.
Enjoyable but not really my cup of tea. Eldritch horrors from the deep really aren't my thing.