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The Jennifer Morgue
TJM-cover
Type novel
Publication date 2006
ISBN 1-930846-45-2
Timeline Order
Preceded by
The Atrocity Archives
Followed by
Down on the Farm

The Jennifer Morgue is the second collection of stories by Charles Stross featuring Bob Howard, containing the title novel The Jennifer Morgue, the short story "Pimpf", and an essay titled "The Golden Age of Spying".

Synopsis[]

In 1975, the CIA used Howard Hughes's Glomar Explorer in a bungled attempt to raise a sunken Soviet submarine in order to access the "Gravedust" unit, an occult device that allows communication with the dead. Now a ruthless billionaire intends to try again, even if by doing so he awakens the Great Old Ones, who thwarted the earlier expedition. It's up to Bob and a collection of British eccentrics even Monty Python would consider odd to stop the bad guy and save the world, while getting receipts for all expenditures or else face the most dreaded menace of all: the Laundry's own auditors.

Plot[]

Bob Howard is sent abroad with Ramona Random, an operative of the Black Chamber and a member of BLUE HADES, to defeat Ellis Billington's plan to steal and use the Gravedust unit on DEEP SEVEN. BLUE HADES have an interest in preventing this.

Ellis has relocated to the Caribbean island of Saint Martin and put it under an occult enchantment which ensures only people who fit a particular stereotype can enter the island safely. Bob enters the island as the James Bond stereotype (or so he believes), and is destiny entangled with Ramona so that she can also enter the island. After a series of hijinks, Bob and Ramona end up trapped on Ellis' yacht. At this point Doctor Dominique "Mo" O'Brien arrives, revealing that she is the James Bond stereotype, here to rescue Bob as the Damsel in Distress stereotype. Mo kills Ellis using the White Violin.

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