This was a fun book! Bob Howard works for the Laundry, and uber secret organization that is the front line defence against the things that go bump in the night (or worse). He's a computer geek by trade and now he becoming a field agent. Except there are a heck of a lot of meaningless meetings, training sessions, and paperwork to deal with in order to get there. Including references to being ISO-9000 certified.
Bob is sent to the states to meet with Mo, a professor who is having difficulty getting back to Britain. Except all is not as it appears after meeting the lovely Dominique and discovering the States don't want her out of their sight. She's kidnapped, he attempts a rescue and everything goes downhill from there. When he wakes up back in England, he discovers Mo has been conscripted into the Laundry and he's to find out what and who is behind her kidnapping. It gets ugly, and worse, he forgets to fill out the correct form for making an emergency call while in the field.
The interplay between secret agent man and bureaucratic nonsense is absolutely great. My only complaint with the book was all the acronyms. I had difficulty keeping track of what meant what, even with the help of the glossary in the back. Still, the wry sense of humor Stross liberally distills in the books is fantastic.
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