SOME AGENTS HAVE ALL THE FUN. OTHERS SAVE THE WORLD. Bob Howard is an IT expert and occasional field agent for the Laundry, the branch of Her Majesty's Secret Service that deals with occult threats. Dressed (grudgingly) in a tux and sent to the Caribbean, he must infiltrate a millionaire's yacht in order to prevent him from violating a treaty that will bring down the wrath of an ancient underwater race upon humanity's head. Partnered with a gorgeous American agent who's actually a soul-sucking succubus from another dimension, Bob's mission (should he choose to accept it) is to stop the bad...

NEVER VOLUNTEER FOR ACTIVE DUTY ...Bob Howard is a low-level techie working for a super-secret government agency. While his colleagues are out saving the world, Bob's under a desk restoring lost data. His world was dull and safe - but then he went and got Noticed. Now, Bob is up to his neck in spycraft, parallel universes, dimension-hopping terrorists, monstrous elder gods and the end of the world. Only one thing is certain: it will take more than a full system reboot to sort this mess out ...This is the first novel in the Laundry Files.

A major SF debut from a British writer who will stand alongside Banks, Hamilton and Reynolds.

The third novel from one of the most exciting new British SF writers of the decade.

LONDON CAN DRAIN THE LIFE OUT OF YOU ...Bob Howard is an intelligence agent working his way through the ranks of the top secret government agency known as 'the Laundry'. When occult powers threaten the realm, they'll be there to clean up the mess - and deal with the witnesses. There's one kind of threat that the Laundry has never come across in its many decades, and that's vampires. Mention them to a seasoned agent and you'll be laughed out of the room. But when a small team of investment bankers at one of Canary Wharf's most distinguished financial institutions discovers an arcane algorithm...

In this science fiction spy thriller by Hugo Award winning writer Charles Stross, the Laundry - the British secret agency that fights supernatural threats - must team up with the police force, with one unfortunate secret agent caught in the middle.