Goddam, this book is a disappointment.

After N books of Bob Howard's Laundry, it should be interesting to see Mo O'Brian's Laundry, and see the world through Mo's eyes. Unfortunately, in this book the role of Mo has been filled by Bridget Jones.

Just once, I would love to see a book where the middle aged female protagonist doesn't have a hunky co-worker she finds hard to resist, while her absent husband and struggling marriage labor on in the background. Or find herself in a contrived situation that requires her to work with her husband's ex-girlfriends. It's.... derivative.

This is made worse by the static nature of the plot. The premise of the book is that Mo's and her team is in the middle of London, on call to put down third tier supervillains. Mo never escape this. She never figures out who Freudstein is on her own. She never puts the pieces together. Even at the end, Mo's big escape plan involves telling Officer Friendly to pick up the script and run. And there's no reason why Mo is even kept in the dark here -- the SA knows exactly who is responsible, so why keep her in the dark?

Oh, and a thinly veiled Tony Blair as the Mandate was just cringe inducing.