Just finished Charles Stross' latest Laundry book "The Delirium Brief". This one sees Bob Howard back as the main character, taking place directly after the events of "The Nightmare Stacks". Another darker book that takes the series down an unexpected track. After the aborted inter-dimensional invasion that has left thousands dead and Leeds devastated, the Laundry is outed and scapegoated, with the government intent on disowning and disbanding the secret agency now laid bare to public view. Behind it all is a secret takeover over of the US agencies and the UK government by the Sleeper. An old enemy returns, and Bob and what's left of the Laundry have to battle the puppeted government, an evil god from another universe, and will have to make a deal with the devil to keep the country and the world safe.
Once again, Stross turns in a darkly humorous and scary tale of our world on the brink of supernatural collapse, with only a top secret spy agency standing in the way. This time their enemies are not just the Evil Ones, but our own politicians and media. Things go badly... and then they get worse.
Another brilliant addition to the series by Stross, and if you've read the previous books, it's a nice return to have Bob back after he was sidelined for a while in the last two novels.
I was in a heavy metal pub having a few beers and saw this girl sitting reading a book while having a few beers and I got a bit curious. After all, how many sits and read a book in a pub like that? And she did change to a different table a bit later which made me see the front of the book and it looked like a cover of a Murakamibook. So when she walked past my table I had to ask her what she was reading and she went "oh you speak english?" and then told me she is reading "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle" by Murakami, which was a good starting point. And we ended up having a good few beers together talking about Murakami and metal music, win-win!! \m/
