What do you think?
Rate this book
Win a free print copy of this book!
4 days and 17:43:32
20 copies available
U.S. only
Laundry Files #14
The Regicide Report
Not yet published
Expected 27 Jan 26Win a free print copy of this book!
4 days and 17:43:32
20 copies available
U.S. only
An occult assassin, an elderly royal and a living god face off in The Regicide Report, the thrilling final novel in Charles Stross' epic, Hugo Award-winning Laundry Files series.
When the Elder God recently installed as Prime Minister identifies the monarchy as a threat to his growing power, Bob Howard and Mo O'Brien - recently of the supernatural espionage service known as the Laundry Files - are reluctantly pressed into service.
Fighting vampirism, scheming American agents and their own better instincts, Bob and Mo will join their allies for the very last time. God save the Queen― because someone has to.
When the Elder God recently installed as Prime Minister identifies the monarchy as a threat to his growing power, Bob Howard and Mo O'Brien - recently of the supernatural espionage service known as the Laundry Files - are reluctantly pressed into service.
Fighting vampirism, scheming American agents and their own better instincts, Bob and Mo will join their allies for the very last time. God save the Queen― because someone has to.
336 pages, Hardcover
Expected publication January 27, 2026
1 person is currently reading
2691 people want to read
About the author
Charles Stross
158 books5,840 followersCharles David George "Charlie" Stross is a writer based in Edinburgh, Scotland. His works range from science fiction and Lovecraftian horror to fantasy.
Stross is sometimes regarded as being part of a new generation of British science fiction writers who specialise in hard science fiction and space opera. His contemporaries include Alastair Reynolds, Ken MacLeod, Liz Williams and Richard Morgan.
SF Encyclopedia: http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/...
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_...
Tor: http://us.macmillan.com/author/charle...
Stross is sometimes regarded as being part of a new generation of British science fiction writers who specialise in hard science fiction and space opera. His contemporaries include Alastair Reynolds, Ken MacLeod, Liz Williams and Richard Morgan.
SF Encyclopedia: http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/...
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_...
Tor: http://us.macmillan.com/author/charle...
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
December 5, 2025
Faced with the weight of 20+ years of accreted lore, some *ahem* variable quality in recent books, an aging reader base, and above all the exponentially-increasing weirdness of the real world, Charles Stross has done his incantations, drawn his grid, and somehow summoned up a reasonably satisfying ending to the Laundry Files. Mind you, there are serious pacing issues, insufficient editing, and occasional drifts into Marvel movie territory. But like the Crown itself, The Regicide Report shambles on in the face of all reason and criticism, improbably victorious, occasionally glorious. 3.5/5, rounded up for goodwill and entertainment value.
—————————
So first and perhaps most importantly, Bob (or, given his maybe-actually-dead status since Book 3, “Bob”) is back. This isn’t an unambiguous win — Bob’s snarky manchild routine can wear thin, and Stross has done well to broaden the range of perspectives he writes in — but I’ve missed the distinctiveness of his voice and the levity it brings to a setting that is, after all, Any% speedrunning an eldritch apocalypse. Bob’s return also signals a return to the “main quest” of the Laundry Files after a long string of side adventures (arguably everything in the last eight years) that provided ambience and background but not much in the way of stakes. Fortunately, The Regicide Report has its stakes baked right into the title, and Stross keeps himself (mostly) focused on the prize, with Bob, Mo, and the rest of the gang scrambling to outrace Queen Elizabeth’s prospective assassination.
I say mostly because Stross, like his narrator, really can’t help derailing to crack a joke or drop some knowledge. Many of these authorial asides are a delight, from a potted history of Buckingham Palace to evocative reminders of the buried rivers of London. But for every page given to historical context, Stross spends at least five riffing on the life and loves of Dr. Phibes, the antihero of cult 1970s British B-movies in our world and the Queen’s new physician in the Laundry Files. Phibes isn’t a bad fit for the Files, a setting that lives for oddities like his murderous mechanical jazz bands and trips down the River of Life. But it’s still a questionably deep cut reference, especially when Phibes sucks up acres of page space in the middle of an otherwise-taut series finale. And while Stross does an acceptable job of finding things for the members of the Phibes household to do that organically fit the story, seeing them on the page is like watching Robert Patrick and Annabeth Gish in the last season of the X-Files: maybe there's nothing wrong with them, but you can't escape the fact they're not Mulder and Scully. I half suspect Stross started a spinoff starring the Phibes and just couldn’t let them go when the time came to write this instead, as they’d be a much better fit to the skeezy, pop-referential world of the New Management series.
Bad Phibes aren’t the only downsides of Regicide, which periodically falls into the bad habits of Stross’ other recent works. There’s a jarring lack of editing (all too common nowadays), with odd repetitions or continuity errors popping up just when you’re starting to get into the flow of a scene. And while the novel’s big assassination set piece is as tight and propulsive as anything Stross has done since Bob raised a zombie horde in Highgate Cemetery, the demands of the plot force Stross to go bigger and bigger and Bigger from there in a way that converges on the CGI-tastic conclusions of modern blockbusters, lots of demigods weightlessly blasting each other with lasers/mana/whatever while the final MacGuffin looms. It’s well-written enough to be exciting, but not as subversive or surprising as the table-flipping conclusion of The Delirium Brief.
That all said, Stross still ties off the series capably, clearly if bluntly addressing What Happens to Everyone and even wrapping up a few threads that I thought had been lost. I personally would have loved to see some of those resolved differently — justice for Spooky’s random opposable thumb! — but the conclusions largely ring true, even when they are sometimes only provisional. Better still, Regicide’s focus on the Crown gives Stross room to resurface the early book’s Len Deighton-inspired ruminations on the state, service, and loyalty, particularly when he forces a choice between modernity’s bloodless horrors and the red-mawed insatiability of the past. There's also a weary middle-aged clarity to the realisation that Bob, Mo and most of their allies have become monsters defending the monstrous, even if their grudging obedience to the Black Pharaoh might be the best of the bad outcomes available. It’s a sinking feeling we’ll probably have to get used to in Britain given where our electorate and Government are heading, just without the excuse of our stars having finally come right.
—————————
So first and perhaps most importantly, Bob (or, given his maybe-actually-dead status since Book 3, “Bob”) is back. This isn’t an unambiguous win — Bob’s snarky manchild routine can wear thin, and Stross has done well to broaden the range of perspectives he writes in — but I’ve missed the distinctiveness of his voice and the levity it brings to a setting that is, after all, Any% speedrunning an eldritch apocalypse. Bob’s return also signals a return to the “main quest” of the Laundry Files after a long string of side adventures (arguably everything in the last eight years) that provided ambience and background but not much in the way of stakes. Fortunately, The Regicide Report has its stakes baked right into the title, and Stross keeps himself (mostly) focused on the prize, with Bob, Mo, and the rest of the gang scrambling to outrace Queen Elizabeth’s prospective assassination.
I say mostly because Stross, like his narrator, really can’t help derailing to crack a joke or drop some knowledge. Many of these authorial asides are a delight, from a potted history of Buckingham Palace to evocative reminders of the buried rivers of London. But for every page given to historical context, Stross spends at least five riffing on the life and loves of Dr. Phibes, the antihero of cult 1970s British B-movies in our world and the Queen’s new physician in the Laundry Files. Phibes isn’t a bad fit for the Files, a setting that lives for oddities like his murderous mechanical jazz bands and trips down the River of Life. But it’s still a questionably deep cut reference, especially when Phibes sucks up acres of page space in the middle of an otherwise-taut series finale. And while Stross does an acceptable job of finding things for the members of the Phibes household to do that organically fit the story, seeing them on the page is like watching Robert Patrick and Annabeth Gish in the last season of the X-Files: maybe there's nothing wrong with them, but you can't escape the fact they're not Mulder and Scully. I half suspect Stross started a spinoff starring the Phibes and just couldn’t let them go when the time came to write this instead, as they’d be a much better fit to the skeezy, pop-referential world of the New Management series.
Bad Phibes aren’t the only downsides of Regicide, which periodically falls into the bad habits of Stross’ other recent works. There’s a jarring lack of editing (all too common nowadays), with odd repetitions or continuity errors popping up just when you’re starting to get into the flow of a scene. And while the novel’s big assassination set piece is as tight and propulsive as anything Stross has done since Bob raised a zombie horde in Highgate Cemetery, the demands of the plot force Stross to go bigger and bigger and Bigger from there in a way that converges on the CGI-tastic conclusions of modern blockbusters, lots of demigods weightlessly blasting each other with lasers/mana/whatever while the final MacGuffin looms. It’s well-written enough to be exciting, but not as subversive or surprising as the table-flipping conclusion of The Delirium Brief.
That all said, Stross still ties off the series capably, clearly if bluntly addressing What Happens to Everyone and even wrapping up a few threads that I thought had been lost. I personally would have loved to see some of those resolved differently — justice for Spooky’s random opposable thumb! — but the conclusions largely ring true, even when they are sometimes only provisional. Better still, Regicide’s focus on the Crown gives Stross room to resurface the early book’s Len Deighton-inspired ruminations on the state, service, and loyalty, particularly when he forces a choice between modernity’s bloodless horrors and the red-mawed insatiability of the past. There's also a weary middle-aged clarity to the realisation that Bob, Mo and most of their allies have become monsters defending the monstrous, even if their grudging obedience to the Black Pharaoh might be the best of the bad outcomes available. It’s a sinking feeling we’ll probably have to get used to in Britain given where our electorate and Government are heading, just without the excuse of our stars having finally come right.
Read
November 29, 2025Stross' Laundry Files finally reach their conclusion, a book which sometimes felt like it would never come – not least because writing a satirical horror series that intersects with British politics has been tricky across a decade where reality kept making the fictional version look too sane by comparison. The good news is that none of the many plates set spinning in previous books have been forgotten; the situation has been escalating for a while now, the Laundry moving from a covert organisation keeping the lid on eldritch horrors (and having lots of meetings) to a repository of assorted half-tamed monsters on the front line of an increasingly dangerous and undeniable breakdown of reality's boundaries (with even more meetings). This also means that original narrator Bob Howard, who some books previously became too powerful to work as a regular protagonist, can take the lead again, and not that I haven't mostly enjoyed his colleagues too, but it's great to have him back. Well, I say 'him'; there's a possibility that he's just been the Eater of Souls thinking he's Bob for a while now. But don't all promotions to management feel a bit that way?
The bad news, alas, is that in a book which already had plenty of threads and characters to juggle, there's a section in the middle where it gets ridiculously distracted by some of its supporting characters, specifically royal physician Professor Phibes and his associates. Yes, that Phibes. Who is suitably entertaining in small doses, but then starts overshadowing everything else, culminating in a section where Bob and his wife Mo end up watching the film versions of Phibes' life, and getting angry at the inaccuracies... except these aren't even quite the Phibes films we know. And OK, yes, on one level making up someone to get mad at is how fiction operates, but creating two divergent versions of a character from what aren't even Vincent Price's best films, and then having the main characters get cross that they don't match up? That feels like a dead end.
Not that Phibes is the only borrowing. I don't just mean the assorted Elder Gods, who've been de facto public domain for decades, though Stross sometimes tweaks their spelling and punctuation. Or even the various real politicians and, yes, as the title suggests, royals, who in some cases have pretty key roles. A bunch of other fictional characters pop up, including an early scene featuring some very familiar figures who are named rather than implied, despite my understanding them to be quite a carefully protected piece of IP. I'm wondering if that might change before publication, as with a previous Laundry book which, like this one, I read as a Netgalley ARC. That adventure, set in Sanrio's theme park, was called Escape From Puroland when I read it, but not when it hit shelves.
That wasn't the only time I wondered if I had a finished text. At least as I read it, The Regicide Report is littered with awkward repetitions. I'm not talking deliberate callbacks, or the recurring use of 'Are we the baddies?', which works beautifully as a memetic drumbeat, at once calling back to the referential humour which always animated the series and reminding us how dark things have since become. I mean the exposition that's in Bob's opening story-so-far chapter, then dropped in again in much the same wording not long after; the two different things compared to three racoons in a trenchcoat within a few pages; the way that one particular dead body seems to lurch back into action twice, without that coming across as an intentional Dracula Has Risen From The Grave so much as a false start that should have been revised out and wasn't. Nor does it help that said body also made a not dissimilar appearance in another recent series that used dark fantasy to prod at Britain's uneasy relationship with its past grandeur and present decay*.
Still, for all that I would have liked it to get another edit, with chunks of the Phibes material left on the cutting room floor, mostly The Regicide Report comes across as a worthy finale to a quarter-century of wry adventures in occult bureaucracy – which is a particular relief after the slog of the misbegotten New Management spin-off trilogy. Hell, there's even the deployment of something I remember Stross blogging about the best part of 20 years ago, which has given me occasional shudders ever since, and which he's clearly been keeping in his back pocket the whole time (though not literally, or he definitely wouldn't have been around to finish the series). There are thrills, spills, chills, explosions, a neurospicy elf I've always had a crush on, and laughs – some of them incredibly abstruse, as when Bob explains the British constitution, and does so with a level of detail that evades many supposedly more serious political thinkers, even while he's suggesting that it's "obviously the product of strong hallucinogens, or maybe barristers trolling each other on Reddit". The novel is built around a plot to off Brenda which, if it might have felt more urgent had it come out while she was still with us, inevitably benefits in other ways by being able to riff on the real, recent, and very strange spectacle of monarchy on parade. And underneath it all, besides being a farewell to beloved characters, it's considering that most relevant of topics, the human ability to carry on as normal even in blatantly abnormal times.
*SPOILER: Gillen and Mora's Once & Future.
The bad news, alas, is that in a book which already had plenty of threads and characters to juggle, there's a section in the middle where it gets ridiculously distracted by some of its supporting characters, specifically royal physician Professor Phibes and his associates. Yes, that Phibes. Who is suitably entertaining in small doses, but then starts overshadowing everything else, culminating in a section where Bob and his wife Mo end up watching the film versions of Phibes' life, and getting angry at the inaccuracies... except these aren't even quite the Phibes films we know. And OK, yes, on one level making up someone to get mad at is how fiction operates, but creating two divergent versions of a character from what aren't even Vincent Price's best films, and then having the main characters get cross that they don't match up? That feels like a dead end.
Not that Phibes is the only borrowing. I don't just mean the assorted Elder Gods, who've been de facto public domain for decades, though Stross sometimes tweaks their spelling and punctuation. Or even the various real politicians and, yes, as the title suggests, royals, who in some cases have pretty key roles. A bunch of other fictional characters pop up, including an early scene featuring some very familiar figures who are named rather than implied, despite my understanding them to be quite a carefully protected piece of IP. I'm wondering if that might change before publication, as with a previous Laundry book which, like this one, I read as a Netgalley ARC. That adventure, set in Sanrio's theme park, was called Escape From Puroland when I read it, but not when it hit shelves.
That wasn't the only time I wondered if I had a finished text. At least as I read it, The Regicide Report is littered with awkward repetitions. I'm not talking deliberate callbacks, or the recurring use of 'Are we the baddies?', which works beautifully as a memetic drumbeat, at once calling back to the referential humour which always animated the series and reminding us how dark things have since become. I mean the exposition that's in Bob's opening story-so-far chapter, then dropped in again in much the same wording not long after; the two different things compared to three racoons in a trenchcoat within a few pages; the way that one particular dead body seems to lurch back into action twice, without that coming across as an intentional Dracula Has Risen From The Grave so much as a false start that should have been revised out and wasn't. Nor does it help that said body also made a not dissimilar appearance in another recent series that used dark fantasy to prod at Britain's uneasy relationship with its past grandeur and present decay*.
Still, for all that I would have liked it to get another edit, with chunks of the Phibes material left on the cutting room floor, mostly The Regicide Report comes across as a worthy finale to a quarter-century of wry adventures in occult bureaucracy – which is a particular relief after the slog of the misbegotten New Management spin-off trilogy. Hell, there's even the deployment of something I remember Stross blogging about the best part of 20 years ago, which has given me occasional shudders ever since, and which he's clearly been keeping in his back pocket the whole time (though not literally, or he definitely wouldn't have been around to finish the series). There are thrills, spills, chills, explosions, a neurospicy elf I've always had a crush on, and laughs – some of them incredibly abstruse, as when Bob explains the British constitution, and does so with a level of detail that evades many supposedly more serious political thinkers, even while he's suggesting that it's "obviously the product of strong hallucinogens, or maybe barristers trolling each other on Reddit". The novel is built around a plot to off Brenda which, if it might have felt more urgent had it come out while she was still with us, inevitably benefits in other ways by being able to riff on the real, recent, and very strange spectacle of monarchy on parade. And underneath it all, besides being a farewell to beloved characters, it's considering that most relevant of topics, the human ability to carry on as normal even in blatantly abnormal times.
*SPOILER: Gillen and Mora's Once & Future.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
My thanks to NetGalley and Tor Publishing Group for an advance copy of this novel about a world where magic, monsters and malignant creatures are real, the government ministry that is in charge of monitoring and dealing with these beings, and what happens when the wheels come off, the government in compromised, and the Elder Gods decide to return.
Growing up I became a big fan of books dealing with monsters, creatures of the night and conspiracies. To this second I am not sure how much I believed about either the Loch Ness Monster or Black Helicopters. I think what I enjoyed was the world building that both Bigfoot and the Kennedy assassination developed to make their truth real. As time has gone on, much of what was feared has come to pass. We live in a surveillance state, our rights are disappearing, and the monsters that we thought bumped in the night, are bumping around our government, scaring many, and creating nightmares that will never go away. Which is why this series seems more real than most modern thrillers. A series about a government agency, working for a creature of evil, carrying out orders uncertain if they are the good people or the baddies, while things get darker and meaner. Sounds like last week. Only these government agents, though less than human in many ways, seem to have kept their humanity. The Regicide Report is the fourteenth entry in the long running series the Laundry Files written by Charles Stross, and is about monarchy, elder gods, immortal murderers, bureaucracy, treason, and working for the darkest of evil, while still having to attend zoom meetings.
The world is a different place. Vampires, elder gods, elves, supervillains, magicians, and bureaucrats walk the Earth, some just trying to get by. Others looking to watch it all burn. Watching these is the Laundry, a group of the British Government tasked to keep an eye on the weird, the strange, the unholy, and well to make a note of it. Things are not going well in England. An elder god has take the seat of Prime Minister and the Laundry has found that instead of fighting the evil, they are now working for it. Bob Howard and Mo O'Brien has seen much, lost much, including their humanity, and are doing their best not to get sucked in or sucked down. Things are not doing well, as clairvoyants have found a threat. An ultimate threat to the monarchy. Someone or something is planning an assassination. One that could change the ruling status of England in many ways. The more Bob and Mo investigate the more threats they find. And many of these threats are coming from inside the house, the House of Lords, and 10 Downing Street.
A series that I have enjoyed, though I seem to keep reading it out of order. Which is great in that Stross is such a good writer one can start anywhere and be caught up quite quickly. Stross has mastered the way of saying what has gone before without it being annoying or obvious, something I wish more books had. The books are funny, with plenty of in-jokes, references and sly asides. I am sure I missed stuff, but I really had a blast reading. Not that this book doesn't have stakes, it does, and could in many ways be an ending to the series, though Stross leaves himself an opening. Reading a book about a dark elder god willing to destroy everything for his own edification hits very close to home. Watching a government agency continuing to do their job, not knowing the stakes, well really speaks to the way the world is. One could say in many ways this is satire, and maybe it is. This is always a really well written story, that once things starts rolling makes it very hard to put down.
I enjoyed this quite a bit. I love the world building and I really enjoyed the relationship between Bob and Mo, who are married, and seem to like each other, without having to be all cloying about it. The story is well written, and fun. Dark, but fun. A really enjoyable series and one worth reading from the beginning. I look forward to reading more by Stross.
Growing up I became a big fan of books dealing with monsters, creatures of the night and conspiracies. To this second I am not sure how much I believed about either the Loch Ness Monster or Black Helicopters. I think what I enjoyed was the world building that both Bigfoot and the Kennedy assassination developed to make their truth real. As time has gone on, much of what was feared has come to pass. We live in a surveillance state, our rights are disappearing, and the monsters that we thought bumped in the night, are bumping around our government, scaring many, and creating nightmares that will never go away. Which is why this series seems more real than most modern thrillers. A series about a government agency, working for a creature of evil, carrying out orders uncertain if they are the good people or the baddies, while things get darker and meaner. Sounds like last week. Only these government agents, though less than human in many ways, seem to have kept their humanity. The Regicide Report is the fourteenth entry in the long running series the Laundry Files written by Charles Stross, and is about monarchy, elder gods, immortal murderers, bureaucracy, treason, and working for the darkest of evil, while still having to attend zoom meetings.
The world is a different place. Vampires, elder gods, elves, supervillains, magicians, and bureaucrats walk the Earth, some just trying to get by. Others looking to watch it all burn. Watching these is the Laundry, a group of the British Government tasked to keep an eye on the weird, the strange, the unholy, and well to make a note of it. Things are not going well in England. An elder god has take the seat of Prime Minister and the Laundry has found that instead of fighting the evil, they are now working for it. Bob Howard and Mo O'Brien has seen much, lost much, including their humanity, and are doing their best not to get sucked in or sucked down. Things are not doing well, as clairvoyants have found a threat. An ultimate threat to the monarchy. Someone or something is planning an assassination. One that could change the ruling status of England in many ways. The more Bob and Mo investigate the more threats they find. And many of these threats are coming from inside the house, the House of Lords, and 10 Downing Street.
A series that I have enjoyed, though I seem to keep reading it out of order. Which is great in that Stross is such a good writer one can start anywhere and be caught up quite quickly. Stross has mastered the way of saying what has gone before without it being annoying or obvious, something I wish more books had. The books are funny, with plenty of in-jokes, references and sly asides. I am sure I missed stuff, but I really had a blast reading. Not that this book doesn't have stakes, it does, and could in many ways be an ending to the series, though Stross leaves himself an opening. Reading a book about a dark elder god willing to destroy everything for his own edification hits very close to home. Watching a government agency continuing to do their job, not knowing the stakes, well really speaks to the way the world is. One could say in many ways this is satire, and maybe it is. This is always a really well written story, that once things starts rolling makes it very hard to put down.
I enjoyed this quite a bit. I love the world building and I really enjoyed the relationship between Bob and Mo, who are married, and seem to like each other, without having to be all cloying about it. The story is well written, and fun. Dark, but fun. A really enjoyable series and one worth reading from the beginning. I look forward to reading more by Stross.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
The final book in the Laundry Files and wow does this one go large, with a dramatic conclusion that at times feels less like an end and more a pause.
It is crammed with references to previous books, so much so that at times it seems to struggle with its own history and threatens to topple over with the weight of it. I've only read a couple of the books, enough to get an idea of most of what was going on but this is not friendly to those newer to the series or who might have forgotten details - there are call backs all the way back to the first book, which came out over twenty years ago. That's a lot of lore to remember, and when characters are introduced with little more than a one line 'here's someone you know' and you're left scrabbling for context the book simply assumes you have, that can be a problem. and then there is stuff that is never explained - just what is happening in America right now in this world? I'm sure its explained in a previous book, but I haven't read that so while I know the outcome of a specific thing, I don't know what is going on now.
There was a lot to love about this book despite that however, you just have to go in ideally having read them more recently so you understand all the references for maximum enjoyment.
I really enjoyed all the references to the English political system - although there were moments when reading this I found it almost too tame for the insanity that has beset our country at times. And hey, who hasn't secretly thought one politician or another might actually be some demon/vampire/soulless monster in a skin suit?
I did wonder at times, what side Mo and Bob were on. I think that is part of the point of the book, the fact that the civil service is less a side and more red tape than anything else, designed to drag you down.
Pete is, ironically, the beating heart of the book, the humanity that is missing from some of the other characters. He was in an impossible dilemma, the type that cosmic horror is known for, and you couldn't help but really feel for him throughout the book.
The finale was great, both at the English location and then the Mythos location (kept vague to avoid spoilers.) I've always had a sneaky love for the Elder gods that get top billing in this book. Yes, they have become increasingly well known as the years have gone by, but still respect to him for only name dropping the big guy and not having him show up just for the sake of it.
But what happened after felt almost safe, with character arcs being finished up in a single line or two, hand waved away and at times denied the explanation or conclusion that you do feel you've deserved after the amount of time spent in this world.
All in in all, it was a decent book that delivered in its promise of a regicide report but could have done with a little less history to burden it.
~Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC in return for an honest review~
It is crammed with references to previous books, so much so that at times it seems to struggle with its own history and threatens to topple over with the weight of it. I've only read a couple of the books, enough to get an idea of most of what was going on but this is not friendly to those newer to the series or who might have forgotten details - there are call backs all the way back to the first book, which came out over twenty years ago. That's a lot of lore to remember, and when characters are introduced with little more than a one line 'here's someone you know' and you're left scrabbling for context the book simply assumes you have, that can be a problem. and then there is stuff that is never explained - just what is happening in America right now in this world? I'm sure its explained in a previous book, but I haven't read that so while I know the outcome of a specific thing, I don't know what is going on now.
There was a lot to love about this book despite that however, you just have to go in ideally having read them more recently so you understand all the references for maximum enjoyment.
I really enjoyed all the references to the English political system - although there were moments when reading this I found it almost too tame for the insanity that has beset our country at times. And hey, who hasn't secretly thought one politician or another might actually be some demon/vampire/soulless monster in a skin suit?
I did wonder at times, what side Mo and Bob were on. I think that is part of the point of the book, the fact that the civil service is less a side and more red tape than anything else, designed to drag you down.
Pete is, ironically, the beating heart of the book, the humanity that is missing from some of the other characters. He was in an impossible dilemma, the type that cosmic horror is known for, and you couldn't help but really feel for him throughout the book.
The finale was great, both at the English location and then the Mythos location (kept vague to avoid spoilers.) I've always had a sneaky love for the Elder gods that get top billing in this book. Yes, they have become increasingly well known as the years have gone by, but still respect to him for only name dropping the big guy and not having him show up just for the sake of it.
But what happened after felt almost safe, with character arcs being finished up in a single line or two, hand waved away and at times denied the explanation or conclusion that you do feel you've deserved after the amount of time spent in this world.
All in in all, it was a decent book that delivered in its promise of a regicide report but could have done with a little less history to burden it.
~Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC in return for an honest review~
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Strange as it may seem, this is only my second dip into The Laundry Files. I read the first book in the series, and then this one - which is, for the foreseeable future at least, the last. An unusual move and not one I would usually make, it just turned out this way.
The Regicide Report sees the UK trying to find a way to operate normally under The New Management - a regime which, without giving spoilers is somehow the lesser of two evils but still...well pretty evil frankly!
I have to say I really enjoyed this. Charles Stross still has an unmistakably British and sparky outlook which makes me genuinely laugh out loud at several points. The references to the British monarchy, broader political system and civil service are pointed and very funny as well as being beautifully woven with Lovecraftian elements and even some 1970s cult film references. All crafted to tell a complex but followable eldritch cosmic horror tale for the modern era.
I would say that this isn't really a beginner friendly book - you really do need to have some previous knowledge of the earlier books in the series to fully appreciate all of the references in this one. I love the author's attention to detail, I love the fact that scenarios and cases from book 1 are woven in here, but I would have been lost if I were a complete newcomer. As it was I finished this book with a) a sense of urgency to read the others and b) a feeling that I would have enjoyed this a lot more and missed a lot less had I already read them.
There are some fabulous references to Elder gods and Mythos locations as well as British legends, which all chime nicely. The characters have all undergone quite a bit of development since the last time I met them and some of the newer ones seem to exist in a very nicely constructed moral ambiguity which I enjoyed a lot. Particular shout outs to Pete the reverend vampire and Derek the DnD forecaster as favourites of mine.
The ending was a little surprising - in a good way, most of the people you come to know get a satisfactory conclusion - and did leave me wondering if there would be more to come from this world in the future. Never say never!
Overall a great cosmic horror which is a lot of fun and somehow feels both familiar and new at the same time. I just think it would have benefitted from relying on the reader knowing the full history of the Laundry a little less.
- Thanks to NetGalley for granting me the ARC in return for an honest review -
The Regicide Report sees the UK trying to find a way to operate normally under The New Management - a regime which, without giving spoilers is somehow the lesser of two evils but still...well pretty evil frankly!
I have to say I really enjoyed this. Charles Stross still has an unmistakably British and sparky outlook which makes me genuinely laugh out loud at several points. The references to the British monarchy, broader political system and civil service are pointed and very funny as well as being beautifully woven with Lovecraftian elements and even some 1970s cult film references. All crafted to tell a complex but followable eldritch cosmic horror tale for the modern era.
I would say that this isn't really a beginner friendly book - you really do need to have some previous knowledge of the earlier books in the series to fully appreciate all of the references in this one. I love the author's attention to detail, I love the fact that scenarios and cases from book 1 are woven in here, but I would have been lost if I were a complete newcomer. As it was I finished this book with a) a sense of urgency to read the others and b) a feeling that I would have enjoyed this a lot more and missed a lot less had I already read them.
There are some fabulous references to Elder gods and Mythos locations as well as British legends, which all chime nicely. The characters have all undergone quite a bit of development since the last time I met them and some of the newer ones seem to exist in a very nicely constructed moral ambiguity which I enjoyed a lot. Particular shout outs to Pete the reverend vampire and Derek the DnD forecaster as favourites of mine.
The ending was a little surprising - in a good way, most of the people you come to know get a satisfactory conclusion - and did leave me wondering if there would be more to come from this world in the future. Never say never!
Overall a great cosmic horror which is a lot of fun and somehow feels both familiar and new at the same time. I just think it would have benefitted from relying on the reader knowing the full history of the Laundry a little less.
- Thanks to NetGalley for granting me the ARC in return for an honest review -
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
And so the Laundry Files comes to an end. For the first half dozen or so books this was a favourite series of mine, but along the way something in them seems to have curdled. What were once highly enjoyable occult spy thrillers sank into despair and snark and cynicism. I mean, looking at the state of the world it’s not an unreasonable response, but it’s not what I wanted from them. The previous novel however showed some signs of emerging from this, and being actually, you know, fun, so I was cautiously hopeful for this one. It turned out I was right on both counts. Familiar flaws remain…I’m never sure that Stross really thinks through his plots and doublecrosses and instead just writes up a blizzard to convince us that he knows what is really going on, which works in the moment but when you think back after finishing there are a lot of “hang on…” moments. Another long standing bugbear is that the main way these characters express themselves is by showing off their technical knowledge over and over again, and it gets a bit wearying. This book specifically isn’t helped by a couple of story decisions either. The homage to the Dr Phibes movies is overdone, a nice joke that outstays it’s welcome, and the concept of the big fight at the end is painfully similar (coincidentally, I’m sure) to a recent set of graphic novels which it would be spoilerish to name.
But it’s not all bad! It’s good to have Bob and Mo back at the centre, and the book also draws in other characters from throughout the series which helps cap it off. There are some exciting passages, and it is a pacy read, carried along on waves of enthusiasm and gonzo ideas (and blood, quite a lot of blood as well). To say that I didn’t have fun with it would be a lie, but it is qualified fun. Overall, I’m glad that the Laundry Files pulled themselves out of what looked like a terminal death spiral before the end, but truth be told I’m also glad that they’re over.
But it’s not all bad! It’s good to have Bob and Mo back at the centre, and the book also draws in other characters from throughout the series which helps cap it off. There are some exciting passages, and it is a pacy read, carried along on waves of enthusiasm and gonzo ideas (and blood, quite a lot of blood as well). To say that I didn’t have fun with it would be a lie, but it is qualified fun. Overall, I’m glad that the Laundry Files pulled themselves out of what looked like a terminal death spiral before the end, but truth be told I’m also glad that they’re over.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
You have to be mad to enjoy the Laundry files. I’m definitely mad. But at least as far as I know I’ve not got any brain or soul eating entities inside me making me do so. But then again, how would I even know if that is true or not.
Anyway.
Another deep, chaotic, dive into the world of Bob, Mo and the other characters of the Laundry files. This is book 14 (the author suggests the last in the series). Read the others in order if you want to know how we got here and make - some - sense of what’s going on.
Otherwise just dive right in * and enjoy the mayhem cluster() bomb that is released in these, probably fictional, pages of the behind the scenes world of Parliament, the Civil Service and Royalty, nee the Queen. No wonder the world, and in particular, the British parliamentary system is the way it currently is.
This is a report that is sure to be recalled and buried deep in red tape as soon as it’s released. So jump in really quickly and get your copy before that happens!
Footnote*: Please be advised to put on your gold-plated demon/space entity/God protecting armour before you do, dive in. The consequences of NOT following this instruction is entirely at the risk of any (soon to be not) human reader.
You have been warned. Enjoy the ride.
Thank you to Little, Brown Book Group UK and NetGalley for the ARC. The views expressed are all mine, freely given.
Anyway.
Another deep, chaotic, dive into the world of Bob, Mo and the other characters of the Laundry files. This is book 14 (the author suggests the last in the series). Read the others in order if you want to know how we got here and make - some - sense of what’s going on.
Otherwise just dive right in * and enjoy the mayhem cluster() bomb that is released in these, probably fictional, pages of the behind the scenes world of Parliament, the Civil Service and Royalty, nee the Queen. No wonder the world, and in particular, the British parliamentary system is the way it currently is.
This is a report that is sure to be recalled and buried deep in red tape as soon as it’s released. So jump in really quickly and get your copy before that happens!
Footnote*: Please be advised to put on your gold-plated demon/space entity/God protecting armour before you do, dive in. The consequences of NOT following this instruction is entirely at the risk of any (soon to be not) human reader.
You have been warned. Enjoy the ride.
Thank you to Little, Brown Book Group UK and NetGalley for the ARC. The views expressed are all mine, freely given.
January 3, 2026
I'm grateful to the publisher for giving me access to an advance e-copy of The Regicide Report to consider for review.
The Regicide Report is the final volume (at least for now?) of Stross's Laundry Files sequence, something that, in my view, has grown into a SFF phenomenon. Over the past two and a half decades I've followed the story of Bob Howard, necromancer, demonologist and computer nerd, through books that began as stories "in the style of" a series of espionage masters, mutated into treatments of classic monsters from horror, and ended up as pretty scathing criticism of UK politics.
Where is the endpoint of all that? In whose name is the espionage carried out out? On whose secret service are Bob, Mo and their colleagues engaged? Who is the most scary monster in the pack? What is at the summit of politics and public administration?
Why, the monarchy itself, of course. So, in a book which I think could probably only have been published following the death of Our Late Queen, here is the apotheosis of the Laundry, its endpoint (literally) as the unspeakable horror which has consumed the British State turns its baleful attention on the Crown itself. And on the billions of person-years of worship and belief that it has accumulated.
Written according the normal convention of the series (Bob Howard writing his classified work diaries - but we finally see how and why that exercise is being undertaken) The Regicide Files gives us a complex plot hanging on the dilemma of the Laundry and its duty (enforced by geas) to both the current PM (that nameless horror, who was, in truth, the lesser of two evils - as PMs so often are) and to Her Majesty.
Long-buried External Assets are being awoken, there's trouble afoot at the Palace and Bob's required to wear a fancy suit and shiny shoes. That last may be the thing he worries about most.
This book has all the notes I love in the Laundry Files: the fiendish plot (fiendish in at least two senses of the term), the dry humour, check-ins with most of the vast array of characters Stross has given us to date and a tight, action-filled narrative. I don't know if this was planned in advance, but it's a story that derives real heft from the recent death of Elizabeth II and indeed probably couldn't have been published before. If you thought that the Royal funeral in 2023 was a big production, well, just look at THESE funeral games...
I feel this book provides very much the ending that the Laundry (the series, and the institution) deserves. Bob and Mo get plenty of time (I've missed them in the past few books) and development but we're left guessing about just how events will proceed as CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN unfolds and what role the Laundry will play in that. (I'm blurring some detail here so as not to spoil, but I will note that - as evidenced by Bob's being at large to write his casenotes, some form of normality does continue, albeit the warped version of the New Management)
Strongly recommended to long-haul Laundry fellow-travellers. If you haven't read these books yet then no, really this isn't the one to begin with but you have some fun in store if you go back and begin with The Atrocity Archives.
(It was also fun to see Stross adroitly sidestep issues of continuity in the series...)
The Regicide Report is the final volume (at least for now?) of Stross's Laundry Files sequence, something that, in my view, has grown into a SFF phenomenon. Over the past two and a half decades I've followed the story of Bob Howard, necromancer, demonologist and computer nerd, through books that began as stories "in the style of" a series of espionage masters, mutated into treatments of classic monsters from horror, and ended up as pretty scathing criticism of UK politics.
Where is the endpoint of all that? In whose name is the espionage carried out out? On whose secret service are Bob, Mo and their colleagues engaged? Who is the most scary monster in the pack? What is at the summit of politics and public administration?
Why, the monarchy itself, of course. So, in a book which I think could probably only have been published following the death of Our Late Queen, here is the apotheosis of the Laundry, its endpoint (literally) as the unspeakable horror which has consumed the British State turns its baleful attention on the Crown itself. And on the billions of person-years of worship and belief that it has accumulated.
Written according the normal convention of the series (Bob Howard writing his classified work diaries - but we finally see how and why that exercise is being undertaken) The Regicide Files gives us a complex plot hanging on the dilemma of the Laundry and its duty (enforced by geas) to both the current PM (that nameless horror, who was, in truth, the lesser of two evils - as PMs so often are) and to Her Majesty.
Long-buried External Assets are being awoken, there's trouble afoot at the Palace and Bob's required to wear a fancy suit and shiny shoes. That last may be the thing he worries about most.
This book has all the notes I love in the Laundry Files: the fiendish plot (fiendish in at least two senses of the term), the dry humour, check-ins with most of the vast array of characters Stross has given us to date and a tight, action-filled narrative. I don't know if this was planned in advance, but it's a story that derives real heft from the recent death of Elizabeth II and indeed probably couldn't have been published before. If you thought that the Royal funeral in 2023 was a big production, well, just look at THESE funeral games...
I feel this book provides very much the ending that the Laundry (the series, and the institution) deserves. Bob and Mo get plenty of time (I've missed them in the past few books) and development but we're left guessing about just how events will proceed as CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN unfolds and what role the Laundry will play in that. (I'm blurring some detail here so as not to spoil, but I will note that - as evidenced by Bob's being at large to write his casenotes, some form of normality does continue, albeit the warped version of the New Management)
Strongly recommended to long-haul Laundry fellow-travellers. If you haven't read these books yet then no, really this isn't the one to begin with but you have some fun in store if you go back and begin with The Atrocity Archives.
(It was also fun to see Stross adroitly sidestep issues of continuity in the series...)
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews