In this exceptional sequel to Stross' 2004 work The Atrocity Archives, Bob Howard is a computer enthusiast working for a secret British agency known as the "Laundry". The Laundry's job is to clean up glitches in society caused by things from other dimensions (a form of magic). In 1975, the CIA attempted to raise a sunken Soviet sub to access the book's namesake, a medium to talk with the dead. They failed. Now a greedy billionaire is attempting to do so again, even if it means waking the Old Ones (an ancient group of sea-monsters that stopped the 1975 expedition).
