Laundry series: James Bond, Cthulhu, and Dilbert walk into a showing of Monty Python and the Knights of the Holy Grail. You know the drill.

In this case, Bob is investigating top-secret Squadron 666 (nuclear armed Concordes and extra-dimensional reconnaissance) on behalf of his strange and terrifying boss Angleton when everything goes pear-shaped. A bystander is killed, Angleton disappears, and cultists and Russian Occult Intelligence agencies are chasing after something called The Eater of Souls, which might be the key to unlocking CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN and the end of the world. Meanwhile, Mo is taking her (human bone, soul-eating, pure evil) violin for a tune up, and Bob is exploring the wonders of matrix management in the aftermath of a major fuck up. And the the dark workings of the (very real) Baron Roman von Urgern-Sternberg might be the key to solving it all, before Bob finds himself as Victim #1 in an act of black magic.

There's nothing wrong with this book, and it's a fun read, but somehow even less than 24 hours after finishing it I can't really remember anything in it that happened, or mattered. It's a very transitional novel, and Stross hits its themes better in The Atrocity Archives and The Rhesus Chart. Not saying that you should pass, but if you wanted to, this wouldn't be a bad Laundry book to skip.