James Nicoll Reviews

Bob Howard’s career in the Laundry, the secret British government agency
dedicated to protecting the world from unspeakable horrors from beyond
spacetime, has entailed high combat, brilliant hacking, ancient magic, and
combat with indescribably repellent creatures of pure evil. It has also
involved a wearying amount of paperwork and office politics, and his
expense reports are *still* a mess.

Now, following the invasion of Yorkshire by the Host of Air and Darkness,
the Laundry’s existence has become public, and Bob is being trotted out on
TV to answer pointed questions about elven asylum seekers. What neither Bob
nor his managers have foreseen is that their organization has earned the
attention of a horror far more terrifying than any demon: a British
government looking for public services to privatize. There’s a lot of
potential shareholder value in the Laundry’s ​“knowledge assets.”

Inch by inch, Bob Howard and his managers are forced to consider the truly
unthinkable: a coup against the British government itself.