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* CoolCar: [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]] in ''The Jennifer Morgue'', where Bob is stuck with a Smart car. He's not very happy about this, mainly because he has to drive down the Autobahn to a conference and keeps getting blitzed by Audis. On the other hand, once Pinky and Brains jam the obligatory load of James Bond-esque gadgets in it, it becomes a lot cooler. But at the end of the day, it's still a Smart Car stuffed with Bond-esque gadgets...
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* CoolCar: [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]] in ''The Jennifer Morgue'', where Bob is stuck with a Smart car. He's not very happy about this, mainly because he has to drive down the Autobahn to a conference and keeps getting blitzed by Audis. On the other hand, once Pinky and Brains jam the obligatory load of James Bond-esque gadgets in it, it becomes a lot cooler. But at the end of the day, for all its gadgetry, it's still just a Smart Car stuffed with Bond-esque gadgets...Fortwo.
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* GirlOfTheWeek: The book discusses, lampshades, and generally plays hell with this trope: the opposition is using a Hero-trap geas, meaning that all efforts to oppose him will be funneled into the TheoryOfNarrativeCausality; since he cast himself as the villain, he can only be successfully resisted by a Film/JamesBond archetype, which is played by [[TheHero Bob]]. He is quickly paired up with a female [[EagleLand Black Chamber]] agent, making her a Bond girl. [[spoiler:And then the trope is turned completely upside down: it turns out that [[TheChessmaster Angleton]] was able to successfully end-run the geas by making Bob's girlfriend, Mo, the true Bond-figure in the geas, meaning that ''Bob'' is the [[DamselInDistress actual Bond girl]], allowing Mo to save the day in a Bond-worthy BigDamnHeroes moment. The narrative also notes that there's almost always two Bond girls, one "[[TheChick light]]", one "{{dark|ActionGirl}}", thus making room for the Black Chamber agent in the geas.]]
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* GirlOfTheWeek: The book discusses, lampshades, and generally plays hell with this trope: the opposition is using a Hero-trap geas, meaning that all efforts to oppose him will be funneled into the TheoryOfNarrativeCausality; since he cast himself as the villain, he can only be successfully resisted by a Film/JamesBond archetype, which is played by [[TheHero Bob]]. He is quickly paired up with a female [[EagleLand Black Chamber]] agent, making her a Bond girl. [[spoiler:And then the trope is turned completely upside down: it turns out that [[TheChessmaster Angleton]] was able to successfully end-run the geas by making Bob's girlfriend, Mo, the true Bond-figure in the geas, meaning that ''Bob'' is the [[DamselInDistress actual Bond girl]], allowing Mo to save the day in a Bond-worthy BigDamnHeroes moment. The narrative also notes that there's almost always two Bond girls, one "[[TheChick "[[TheHeart light]]", one "{{dark|ActionGirl}}", thus making room for the Black Chamber agent in the geas.]]
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* GameFace: Subverted. The protagonist is working with a [[HornyDevils succubus]] covered by a level-three glamour that makes her look like a gorgeous woman. Eventually despite her warnings he insists that she reveal her real face--and instead of the hideous demon he expects, it turns out she's a HalfHumanHybrid that he actually finds rather attractive.
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* GameFace: Subverted. The protagonist is working with a [[HornyDevils [[SuccubiAndIncubi succubus]] covered by a level-three glamour that makes her look like a gorgeous woman. Eventually despite her warnings he insists that she reveal her real face--and instead of the hideous demon he expects, it turns out she's a HalfHumanHybrid that he actually finds rather attractive.
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* OutWithABang: Ramona Random is a CIA agent with a [[HornyDevils succubus]] bound to her soul who usually kills by these means. It leads to a nasty predicament where one of her targets has a heart attack during sex, and she needs the little death to go with the big one or the awakened succubus will eat her soul as well.
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* OutWithABang: Ramona Random is a CIA agent with a [[HornyDevils [[SuccubiAndIncubi succubus]] bound to her soul who usually kills by these means. It leads to a nasty predicament where one of her targets has a heart attack during sex, and she needs the little death to go with the big one or the awakened succubus will eat her soul as well.
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Up To Eleven is a defunct trope
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* CoolBoat: Billington, the Blofeldian supervillain, owns not one but ''[[UpToEleven three]]''. ''Mabuse'', a denavalized ex-Indian Navy ''Krivak III''-class frigate, is his yacht. The ex-''Glomar Explorer'' is the 66,000-ton salvage ship he's bought to enact his plan. And the ''Hopper'' only ever puts in an offscreen appearance, but it's mentioned as a old liner that's wired up with enough satellite bandwidth to serve as the nerve center of his business/surveillance operation.
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* CoolBoat: Billington, the Blofeldian supervillain, owns not one but ''[[UpToEleven three]]''.''three''. ''Mabuse'', a denavalized ex-Indian Navy ''Krivak III''-class frigate, is his yacht. The ex-''Glomar Explorer'' is the 66,000-ton salvage ship he's bought to enact his plan. And the ''Hopper'' only ever puts in an offscreen appearance, but it's mentioned as a old liner that's wired up with enough satellite bandwidth to serve as the nerve center of his business/surveillance operation.
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Bob Howard is the newest field agent for The Laundry, a top-secret government organization devoted to keeping the UK safe from magical threats, and preventing the public from learning that magic is real. With a background in IT, Bob is very much aware that working for a secret government agency--even one as unusual as The Laundry--is not as exciting as fiction might make you think. It's still a hidebound, bureaucratic government agency with endless paperwork. His latest assignment, however, is starting to take some unusual turns. First, he's asked to meet with a foreign agent, Ramona Random, who turns out to be a serious FemmeFatale--and far more dangerous than she first appears. Next, he's sent to a beautiful Caribbean island to investigate a billionaire who lives on a former warship converted into a yacht--and who may be planning to take over the world.
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Bob Howard is the newest field agent for The Laundry, a top-secret government organization devoted to keeping the UK safe from magical threats, and preventing the public from learning that magic is real. With a background in IT, Bob is very much aware that working for a secret government agency--even one as unusual as The Laundry--is not as exciting as fiction might make you think. It's still a hidebound, bureaucratic government agency with endless paperwork. paperwork.
His latest assignment, however, is starting to take some unusual turns. First, he's asked to meet with a foreign agent, Ramona Random, who turns out to be a serious FemmeFatale--and far more dangerous than she first appears. Next, he's sent to a beautiful Caribbean island to investigate a billionaire who lives on a former warship converted into a yacht--and who may be planning to take over the world.
His latest assignment, however, is starting to take some unusual turns. First, he's asked to meet with a foreign agent, Ramona Random, who turns out to be a serious FemmeFatale--and far more dangerous than she first appears. Next, he's sent to a beautiful Caribbean island to investigate a billionaire who lives on a former warship converted into a yacht--and who may be planning to take over the world.
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Now a Useful Note, which cannot be listed as a trope.
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* TheWarOnTerror: The book mentions rather offhandedly that "Saddam's magical disappearing chemical weapons" were the result of a faulty prediction of the future by the Laundry's Predictive Branch.
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* TheAllegedCar: Franchise/JamesBond gets an Aston-Martin; Bob gets a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_(automobile) Smartfortwo]]. It develops shades of CoolCar later in the book, as its Bond-esque gadgets actually come in handy.
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* TheAllegedCar: Franchise/JamesBond gets an Aston-Martin; Bob gets a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_(automobile) Smartfortwo]].Smart car]]. It develops shades of CoolCar later in the book, as its Bond-esque gadgets actually come in handy.
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* TheAllegedCar: Franchise/JamesBond gets an Aston-Martin; Bob gets a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_(automobile) Smart car]]. It develops shades of CoolCar later in the book, as its Bond-esque gadgets actually come in handy.
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* TheAllegedCar: Franchise/JamesBond gets an Aston-Martin; Bob gets a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_(automobile) Smart car]].Smartfortwo]]. It develops shades of CoolCar later in the book, as its Bond-esque gadgets actually come in handy.
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* BloodBath: The book references the original legend with [[ElizabethBathory Bathory]] [=PaleGrace=] (TM), a makeup that carries a youth-projecting glamour in every jar. As the company's founder says, [[PostModernMagik stem cell research means they're down to about 14 parts per million virgin blood]] in every jar... but [[HumanSacrifice there's no other way to get the endorphins that come with stress]].
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* BloodBath: The book references the original legend with [[ElizabethBathory [[UsefulNotes/ElizabethBathory Bathory]] [=PaleGrace=] (TM), a makeup that carries a youth-projecting glamour in every jar. As the company's founder says, [[PostModernMagik stem cell research means they're down to about 14 parts per million virgin blood]] in every jar... but [[HumanSacrifice there's no other way to get the endorphins that come with stress]].
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* {{Synchronization}}: The protagonist is "destiny entangled" with his partner... this grants them useful tricks like telepathy and sensorium sharing (definitely FetishFuel when one half of the partnership is a succubus...) but with the downside that they [[spoiler:eventually lose all individuality and become a single mind in two bodies.]]
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* {{Synchronization}}: The protagonist is "destiny entangled" with his partner... this grants them useful tricks like telepathy and sensorium sharing (definitely FetishFuel a fetish when one half of the partnership is a succubus...) but with the downside that they [[spoiler:eventually lose all individuality and become a single mind in two bodies.]]
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* TheAllegedCar: Franchise/JamesBond gets an Aston-Martin; Bob gets a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_(automobile) Smartfortwo]]. It develops shades of CoolCar later in the book, as its Bond-esque gadgets actually come in handy.
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* TheAllegedCar: Franchise/JamesBond gets an Aston-Martin; Bob gets a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_(automobile) Smartfortwo]].Smart car]]. It develops shades of CoolCar later in the book, as its Bond-esque gadgets actually come in handy.
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* TheAllegedCar: Franchise/JamesBond gets an Aston-Martin; Bob gets a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_(automobile) Smart car]]. It develops shades of CoolCar later in the book, as its Bond-esque gadgets actually come in handy.
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* TheAllegedCar: Franchise/JamesBond gets an Aston-Martin; Bob gets a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_(automobile) Smart car]].Smartfortwo]]. It develops shades of CoolCar later in the book, as its Bond-esque gadgets actually come in handy.
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* GenreBlindness: For a pop-culture quoting geek who claims to have seen all the films and books in question before he was 15, Bob takes an awfully long time to realize that the archetype he's labouring under is [[spoiler:James Bond. He even gets a cabin where the [=DVDs=] are all Bond titles, and still doesn't figure it out. To his credit, he easily figures he's in some kind of thriller, but even after Billington tells him that the archetype in question has been reinforced by millions of viewers over fifty years of film -- [[NoMrBondIExpectYouToDine while they're at dinner]]-- he still doesn't catch on]]. (Partially this is because the archetype itself is keeping him from realising, since [[spoiler:he's more the (good) Bond girl rather than Bond himself]]; also, Ramona Random mentions that it's designed to prevent "recursive attacks", i.e. trying to brute-force your way through the geas by taking advantage of the knowledge of James Bond.)
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* GenreBlindness: For a pop-culture quoting geek who claims to have seen all the films and books in question before he was 15, Bob takes an awfully long time to realize that the archetype he's labouring under is [[spoiler:James Bond. He even gets a cabin where the [=DVDs=] are all Bond titles, and still doesn't figure it out. To his credit, he easily figures he's in some kind of thriller, but even after Billington tells him that the archetype in question has been reinforced by millions of viewers over fifty years of film -- [[NoMrBondIExpectYouToDine while they're at dinner]]-- he still doesn't catch on]]. (Partially this is because the archetype itself is keeping him from realising, realizing, since [[spoiler:he's more the (good) Bond girl rather than Bond himself]]; also, Ramona Random mentions that it's designed to prevent "recursive attacks", i.e. trying to brute-force your way through the geas by taking advantage of the knowledge of James Bond.))
* GenreSavvy: Billington's [[TheDragon second in command]], knowing about the geas, knows that the boss will start monologuing and revealing critical information that he, and the {{Mooks}} aren't supposed to know, and that a typical action of a Bond villain in that situation is to eliminate the underling. As a result he makes it a point of leaving the room when it looks like that is about to happen.
* GenreSavvy: Billington's [[TheDragon second in command]], knowing about the geas, knows that the boss will start monologuing and revealing critical information that he, and the {{Mooks}} aren't supposed to know, and that a typical action of a Bond villain in that situation is to eliminate the underling. As a result he makes it a point of leaving the room when it looks like that is about to happen.
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more cross-wicking
* TheTapeKnewYouWouldSayThat: The taped briefing Angleton leaves for Bob does this--to a certain extent. Angleton, while very good, ends up underestimating the time it will take for Bob to complete it, and [[ThisPageWillSelfDestruct the tape self-destructs]] before Bob is fully briefed.
* TheoryOfNarrativeCausality: The BigBad sets up a powerful spell of compulsion that means everything ''has'' to happen exactly the way it would in a ''Film/JamesBond'' movie, thereby making making his plan impossible to stop unless challenged by a lone, British, martini-drinking secret agent. Furthermore, his plan hinges on terminating the spell at a crucial point (when the Bond figure [[NoMrBondIExpectYouToDine gets captured by the villain]]), turning the narrative-powered hero back into a regular guy just before the EvilPlan runs to completion. Fortunately, the spell works both ways, meaning BondVillainStupidity is in full effect. And, crucially, he forgot that the basic James Bond plot formula has a number of small but significant ''variations''...
* TheoryOfNarrativeCausality: The BigBad sets up a powerful spell of compulsion that means everything ''has'' to happen exactly the way it would in a ''Film/JamesBond'' movie, thereby making making his plan impossible to stop unless challenged by a lone, British, martini-drinking secret agent. Furthermore, his plan hinges on terminating the spell at a crucial point (when the Bond figure [[NoMrBondIExpectYouToDine gets captured by the villain]]), turning the narrative-powered hero back into a regular guy just before the EvilPlan runs to completion. Fortunately, the spell works both ways, meaning BondVillainStupidity is in full effect. And, crucially, he forgot that the basic James Bond plot formula has a number of small but significant ''variations''...
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* WhatMeasureIsANonHuman: It's a reasonably major plot point that the CIA doesn't consider anyone with demonic ancestry to be legally human.
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* TheWarOnTerror: The book mentions rather offhandedly that "Saddam's magical disappearing chemical weapons" were the result of a faulty prediction of the future by the Laundry's Predictive Branch.
* WhatMeasureIsANonHuman: It's a reasonably major plot point that the CIA doesn't consider anyone with demonic ancestry to be legallyhuman. human.
* WholePlotReference: An ''in-universe'' whole plot reference: the bad guy uses PostModernMagik to make himself untouchable by anyone but a person who resembles James Bond, and as a side effect develops a tendency to monologue.
* WhatMeasureIsANonHuman: It's a reasonably major plot point that the CIA doesn't consider anyone with demonic ancestry to be legally
* WholePlotReference: An ''in-universe'' whole plot reference: the bad guy uses PostModernMagik to make himself untouchable by anyone but a person who resembles James Bond, and as a side effect develops a tendency to monologue.
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more crosswicking
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* TheBermudaTriangle: The Triangle is one of several sites heavily colonized by the Deep Ones, a species of SufficientlyAdvancedAliens that live on the ocean floor. The disappearances of ships in the region involve the weaponization of gas deposits - when released, they can cause the water under a ship to rush out momentarily, causing the keel to sink into the void just as the water starts rushing back in. The Deep Ones do this whenever a ship gets too close to finding out about them.
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* TheDogWasTheMastermind: The BigBad is evil media tycoon Billington, the [[{{Expy}} Blofeld-alike]], right? Nope, it's [[spoiler:his white Persian cat, Fluffy]]. Okay, it's actually [[spoiler:a Cthonian war god ''possessing'' Fluffy]].
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* TheNameIsBondJamesBond: Parodied in the cover text--appropriately enough, given the number of Bond {{Shout Out}}s in the book:
-->"The name is Howard. Bob Howard. Please don't hurt me..."
-->"The name is Howard. Bob Howard. Please don't hurt me..."
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* SovietSuperscience: One of the {{MacGuffin}}s at the core of the story is a "Gravedust" rig on a sunken Russian submarine that British intelligence believe was used to seek guidance from recently-deceased Politburo members in case the West struck first. [[spoiler: It turns out to be built to dial up something much, ''much'' older...]]
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* {{Synchronization}}: The protagonist is "destiny entangled" with his partner... this grants them useful tricks like telepathy and sensorium sharing (definitely FetishFuel when one half of the partnership is a succubus...) but with the downside that they [[spoiler:eventually lose all individuality and become a single mind in two bodies.]]
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more cross-wicking
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* ClusterFBomb: A memorable example of how one can combine the ClusterFBomb with a NarrativeProfanityFilter, two tropes you wouldn't think you could mix. (Of course, given Bob's [[OccultDetective profession]], he may be referring to BlackSpeech.)
--> '''Bob Howard:''' I start swearing. Not my usual "shit-fuck-piss-cunt-bugger" litany, but ''really'' rude words.
--> '''Bob Howard:''' I start swearing. Not my usual "shit-fuck-piss-cunt-bugger" litany, but ''really'' rude words.
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* KissOfDeath: Ramona Random, the hero's liason with the American "Black Chamber" has a soul-eating daemon bound to her. The means of operation is more of a bite than a kiss, however.
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* MateOrDie: The book has Ramona Random, an assassin from the CIA's occult equivalent with a succubus bound to her soul. The thing is regularly "fed" by consuming the souls of people Ramona has sex with...and when it gets hungry and Ramona's mark dies of a heart attack before climaxing, she's in a rough spot, as "if it doesn't get the little death, it'll go straight for the big one."
* MinorCrimeRevealsMajorPlot: Go to a conference for occult intelligence across the EU → [[spoiler: get roped into a James Bond plot and have to stop a mad billionaire from resurrecting an ancient cyborg war god]].
* MinorCrimeRevealsMajorPlot: Go to a conference for occult intelligence across the EU → [[spoiler: get roped into a James Bond plot and have to stop a mad billionaire from resurrecting an ancient cyborg war god]].
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* NeuroVault: Bob Howard has the briefing for the next stage of his mission implanted this way. Unfortunately the circumstances change halfway through the book, so thanks to this trope Bob is forced to endure an InfoDump that's no longer relevant.
* NoMrBondIExpectYouToDine: The book has the secret agent protagonist captured by the evil billionaire who's trying to resurrect a shoggoth. The next morning, he and his lovely CIA agent contact are treated to breakfast by the billionaire and his wife. Justified as [[spoiler: the billionaire has invoked the tropes of James Bond movies as a geas. He plans to keep the agent locked in the trope of the solitary agent going it alone against the megalomaniac until no one else can possibly intervene, at which point he breaks the geas, kills the agent, and takes over the world before anyone can stop him]].
* OutWithABang: Ramona Random is a CIA agent with a [[HornyDevils succubus]] bound to her soul who usually kills by these means. It leads to a nasty predicament where one of her targets has a heart attack during sex, and she needs the little death to go with the big one or the awakened succubus will eat her soul as well.
* NoMrBondIExpectYouToDine: The book has the secret agent protagonist captured by the evil billionaire who's trying to resurrect a shoggoth. The next morning, he and his lovely CIA agent contact are treated to breakfast by the billionaire and his wife. Justified as [[spoiler: the billionaire has invoked the tropes of James Bond movies as a geas. He plans to keep the agent locked in the trope of the solitary agent going it alone against the megalomaniac until no one else can possibly intervene, at which point he breaks the geas, kills the agent, and takes over the world before anyone can stop him]].
* OutWithABang: Ramona Random is a CIA agent with a [[HornyDevils succubus]] bound to her soul who usually kills by these means. It leads to a nasty predicament where one of her targets has a heart attack during sex, and she needs the little death to go with the big one or the awakened succubus will eat her soul as well.
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* RealDreamsAreWeirder: Bob can tell his dream is ''really'' weird as it follows a linear structure (seeing through the eyes of Ramona Random via 'destiny entanglement") instead of featuring camel-headed spider gods trying to get him to sign a Microsoft User Agreement.
* RightHandCat: Billingford has a classic Right-Hand Cat [[spoiler:as part of his Bond-based destiny trap]], which eventually turns out [[spoiler:to be posessed by the EldritchAbomination he's working for]].
* RightHandCat: Billingford has a classic Right-Hand Cat [[spoiler:as part of his Bond-based destiny trap]], which eventually turns out [[spoiler:to be posessed by the EldritchAbomination he's working for]].
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* WhatMeasureIsANonHuman: It's a reasonably major plot point that the CIA doesn't consider anyone with demonic ancestry to be legally human.
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more cross-wicking
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* GirlOfTheWeek: The book discusses, lampshades, and generally plays hell with this trope: the opposition is using a Hero-trap geas, meaning that all efforts to oppose him will be funneled into the TheoryOfNarrativeCausality; since he cast himself as the villain, he can only be successfully resisted by a Film/JamesBond archetype, which is played by [[TheHero Bob]]. He is quickly paired up with a female [[EagleLand Black Chamber]] agent, making her a Bond girl. [[spoiler:And then the trope is turned completely upside down: it turns out that [[TheChessmaster Angleton]] was able to successfully end-run the geas by making Bob's girlfriend, Mo, the true Bond-figure in the geas, meaning that ''Bob'' is the [[DamselInDistress actual Bond girl]], allowing Mo to save the day in a Bond-worthy BigDamnHeroes moment. The narrative also notes that there's almost always two Bond girls, one "[[TheChick light]]", one "{{dark|ActionGirl}}", thus making room for the Black Chamber agent in the geas.]]
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* {{Guyliner}}: The {{mooks}} are forced to wear eyeliner by their boss, as it's a necessary component for his magical surveillance system. They are less than enthused, hiding it with SunglassesAtNight because, as one mook puts it, "Cosmetics don't go with ''Franchise/GIJoe''."
* HotSkittyOnWailordAction: In a nod to Lovecraft's "The Shadow over Innsmouth", the book brings us human/Deep One hybrids. The deep ones themselves are alien fishmen, but some of the human hybrids can be startlingly attractive (which helps when breeding with humans, of course), and the protagonist muses that he now understands why some people take to [[{{fetish}} solo nude snorkelling off secluded beaches...]] Reference is made to the rather fishy-looking and ugly residents of Innsmouth from the original story, and they are implied to be a particularly in-bred group, and would look pretty peculiar even in the absence of Deep One genes.
* HotSkittyOnWailordAction: In a nod to Lovecraft's "The Shadow over Innsmouth", the book brings us human/Deep One hybrids. The deep ones themselves are alien fishmen, but some of the human hybrids can be startlingly attractive (which helps when breeding with humans, of course), and the protagonist muses that he now understands why some people take to [[{{fetish}} solo nude snorkelling off secluded beaches...]] Reference is made to the rather fishy-looking and ugly residents of Innsmouth from the original story, and they are implied to be a particularly in-bred group, and would look pretty peculiar even in the absence of Deep One genes.
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* InhumanableAlienRights: It's a reasonably major plot point that the CIA doesn't consider anyone with demonic ancestry to be legally human.
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* JustBetweenYouAndMe: Spoofed. The BigBad (who's deliberately following supervillain tropes) explains his evil plan to the hero via [=PowerPoint=]! The Horror!
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some cross-wicking
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* CorruptCorporateExecutive: Billington. This is quite logical since the book is an homage to the James Bond books, where the BigBad is usually a megalomaniac CorruptCorporateExecutive.
* CuteMonsterGirl: Ramona Random, a Deep One hybrid who's knock-out gorgeous even after she drops her glamour. It's mentioned in the story that Deep One hybrids generally tend to be very attractive, as this aids in achieving their design purpose of serving as effective ambassadors to the surface world.
* DeusSexMachina: Ramona Random, a Black Chamber agent, has a succubus bound to her. If she doesn't have sex, it [[MindRape eats her mind]]. If she does have sex, it [[OutWithABang kills the partner instead]]. She's employed as an assassin, naturally.
* EjectionSeat: Discussed. The book goes into some detail as to why an ejection seat in a car is an insanely bad idea; when Bob Howard presses the eject button on his CoolCar, the ''entire car ejects'', which is only slightly less so. It's made clear that only time you should press the button is if ''not'' pressing it is ''definitely'' going to kill you. The explanation also deflates the idea of the "easy eject"; Bob describes how, due to the G-forces involved, the pilot is likely looking at weeks in traction ''at best''.
* FreakinessShame: When half-[[Creator/HPLovecraft Deep One]] assassin [[spoiler:Ramona Random]] drops the illusion protecting her true, fishy appearance, she expects protagonist Bob Howard to be repelled. He's anything but. (From a practical point of view, this is mainly because she's part of a subspecies ''specifically'' engineered not to be repulsive to humans, because the Deep Ones do have an occasional need to interact with them.)
* CuteMonsterGirl: Ramona Random, a Deep One hybrid who's knock-out gorgeous even after she drops her glamour. It's mentioned in the story that Deep One hybrids generally tend to be very attractive, as this aids in achieving their design purpose of serving as effective ambassadors to the surface world.
* DeusSexMachina: Ramona Random, a Black Chamber agent, has a succubus bound to her. If she doesn't have sex, it [[MindRape eats her mind]]. If she does have sex, it [[OutWithABang kills the partner instead]]. She's employed as an assassin, naturally.
* EjectionSeat: Discussed. The book goes into some detail as to why an ejection seat in a car is an insanely bad idea; when Bob Howard presses the eject button on his CoolCar, the ''entire car ejects'', which is only slightly less so. It's made clear that only time you should press the button is if ''not'' pressing it is ''definitely'' going to kill you. The explanation also deflates the idea of the "easy eject"; Bob describes how, due to the G-forces involved, the pilot is likely looking at weeks in traction ''at best''.
* FreakinessShame: When half-[[Creator/HPLovecraft Deep One]] assassin [[spoiler:Ramona Random]] drops the illusion protecting her true, fishy appearance, she expects protagonist Bob Howard to be repelled. He's anything but. (From a practical point of view, this is mainly because she's part of a subspecies ''specifically'' engineered not to be repulsive to humans, because the Deep Ones do have an occasional need to interact with them.)
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* GameFace: Subverted. The protagonist is working with a [[HornyDevils succubus]] covered by a level-three glamour that makes her look like a gorgeous woman. Eventually despite her warnings he insists that she reveal her real face--and instead of the hideous demon he expects, it turns out she's a HalfHumanHybrid that he actually finds rather attractive.
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proper alphabetization (as opposed to the order which had been in use when these tropes were back on the main Laundry page).
* CoolBoat: Billington, the Blofeldian supervillain, owns not one but ''[[UpToEleven three]]''. ''Mabuse'', a denavalized ex-Indian Navy ''Krivak III''-class frigate, is his yacht. The ex-''Glomar Explorer'' is the 66,000-ton salvage ship he's bought to enact his plan. And the ''Hopper'' only ever puts in an offscreen appearance, but it's mentioned as a old liner that's wired up with enough satellite bandwidth to serve as the nerve center of his business/surveillance operation.
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* CoolBoat: Billington, the Blofeldian supervillain, owns not one but ''[[UpToEleven three]]''. ''Mabuse'', a denavalized ex-Indian Navy ''Krivak III''-class frigate, is his yacht. The ex-''Glomar Explorer'' is the 66,000-ton salvage ship he's bought to enact his plan. And the ''Hopper'' only ever puts in an offscreen appearance, but it's mentioned as a old liner that's wired up with enough satellite bandwidth to serve as the nerve center of his business/surveillance operation.
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Bob Howard is the newest field agent for The Laundry, a top-secret government organization devoted to keeping the UK safe from magical threats, and preventing the public from learning that magic is real. With a background in IT, Bob is very much aware that working for a secret government agency--even one as unusual as The Laundry--is not as exciting as fiction might make you think. It's still a hidebound, bureaucratic government agency with endless paperwork. His latest assignment, however, is starting to take some unusual turns. First, he's asked to meet with a foreign agent, Ramona Random, who turns out to be a serious FemmeFatale--and far more dangerous than she first appears. Next, he's sent to a beautiful Caribbean island to investigate a billionaire who lives on a former warship converted into a yacht--and who may be planning to take over the world.
It's all beginning to feel like something straight out of a Franchise/JamesBond film.
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!! Tropes in this book:
* ActionGirl:
** Ramona Random, Bob's liason with the Black Chamber (the US's far-more-brutal and ruthless equivalent of The Laundry) is a FemmeFatale who has no hesitation to kill. Which is unsurprising, since she's [[spoiler:possessed by an extra-dimensional sex-demon]].
** Dominique "Mo" O'Brien who started off as a DamselInDistress in ''The Atrocity Archives'', but in now [[spoiler:turns out to have been Bond in the destiny trap and saves the day with her demon-killing violin]].
* TheAllegedCar: Franchise/JamesBond gets an Aston-Martin; Bob gets a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_(automobile) Smart car]]. It develops shades of CoolCar later in the book, as its Bond-esque gadgets actually come in handy.
* BatmanGambit: The villain attempts this. His plan ''depends'' on the Laundry and the Black Chamber trying to stop him. [[spoiler:Needless to say, it doesn't work out.]]
* BecauseDestinySaysSo: Bob and Ramona are ''destiny-entangled'' and it turns out that [[spoiler:the villain trapped him in a James Bond destiny trap]].
%% * BettyAndVeronica: Mo and Ramona in ''The Jennifer Morgue''.
* BigDamnHeroes: [[spoiler:Mo and Alan Barnes' team]] arrive unexpectedly at the last moment. The whole plan depended on [[spoiler: Mo, not Bob, ''actually'' playing the role of James Bond in the destiny trap set up by the villain]].
* BloodBath: The book references the original legend with [[ElizabethBathory Bathory]] [=PaleGrace=] (TM), a makeup that carries a youth-projecting glamour in every jar. As the company's founder says, [[PostModernMagik stem cell research means they're down to about 14 parts per million virgin blood]] in every jar... but [[HumanSacrifice there's no other way to get the endorphins that come with stress]].
* BondVillainStupidity: Billington was already a Blofeldian figure (CorruptCorporateExecutive, planning a scheme to TakeOverTheWorld, using a yacht converted from a warship), so casting a "destiny trap" to ''create a James Bond-like figure'' is risky at the very least. It's [[JustifiedTrope justified]], partly because Billington thought he could turn it off at any time and partly because [[spoiler: he was insane and possessed]]. It's later pointed out that if Billington had simply approached the Black Chamber with his salvage scheme he would have gotten away with it.
* CapturedSuperEntity: The Black Chamber likes doing this with its operatives. Two of the characters have had soul-eating abominations bound to them and are then in turn wrapped up in a few layers of powerful control magics to keep them on a short leash.
* CoolCar: [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]] in ''The Jennifer Morgue'', where Bob is stuck with a Smart car. He's not very happy about this, mainly because he has to drive down the Autobahn to a conference and keeps getting blitzed by Audis. On the other hand, once Pinky and Brains jam the obligatory load of James Bond-esque gadgets in it, it becomes a lot cooler. But at the end of the day, it's still a Smart Car stuffed with Bond-esque gadgets...
* CoolBoat: Billington, the Blofeldian supervillain, owns not one but ''[[UpToEleven three]]''. ''Mabuse'', a denavalized ex-Indian Navy ''Krivak III''-class frigate, is his yacht. The ex-''Glomar Explorer'' is the 66,000-ton salvage ship he's bought to enact his plan. And the ''Hopper'' only ever puts in an offscreen appearance, but it's mentioned as a old liner that's wired up with enough satellite bandwidth to serve as the nerve center of his business/surveillance operation.
* FunWithAcronyms: The {{Mooks}} keep referencing TLA's IPO. As it turns out, this does not stand for 'Initial Public Offering', but rather, 'Install Planetary Overlord'.
* GambitPileup: Billington, the Black Chamber and the Laundry are all counting on each other's plotting to achieve their own goals.
* GenreBlindness: For a pop-culture quoting geek who claims to have seen all the films and books in question before he was 15, Bob takes an awfully long time to realize that the archetype he's labouring under is [[spoiler:James Bond. He even gets a cabin where the [=DVDs=] are all Bond titles, and still doesn't figure it out. To his credit, he easily figures he's in some kind of thriller, but even after Billington tells him that the archetype in question has been reinforced by millions of viewers over fifty years of film -- [[NoMrBondIExpectYouToDine while they're at dinner]]-- he still doesn't catch on]]. (Partially this is because the archetype itself is keeping him from realising, since [[spoiler:he's more the (good) Bond girl rather than Bond himself]]; also, Ramona Random mentions that it's designed to prevent "recursive attacks", i.e. trying to brute-force your way through the geas by taking advantage of the knowledge of James Bond.)
* GodzillaThreshold: Angleton mentions that one of the support vessels for the operation, open for a "direct line of credit", is ''[[UsefulNotes/UltimateDefenceOfTheRealm HMS Vanguard]]''. Considering that the Blofeldian supervillain [[spoiler:wants to resurrect an ancient Cthonian war god]], having a sub full of [=ICBMs=] on standby suddenly looks like a reasonable precaution.
* IdiotBall: Weaponized by the BigBad; the Hero Trap geas forces his opponents to send in a lone-wolf British agent, who then is pushed by the geas into making the sort of mistakes that only make sense within the structure of a James Bond plot. When Bob realizes this, he throws the Ball right back at the bad guys, and takes full advantage of their own BondVillainStupidity level mistakes (like leaving an unsecured computer within spitting distance of Her Majesty's Literature/BastardOperatorFromHell).
* InstrumentOfMurder: Bob's girlfriend, Mo, carries a Zahn-model violin that she wields like a weapon. In an amusing ShoutOut to Woody Guthrie, the violin has "THIS MACHINE KILLS DEMONS" written on it. The violin itself is a shout out to the Lovecraft short, "The Music of Erich Zahn".
* LockingMacGyverInTheStoreCupboard: The Hero Trap induces BondVillainStupidity on the villains holding Bob captive. They lock him in a stateroom in the yacht of the BigBad, and while they do remove the obvious computer from its desk, they forget to check the television - which is an unsecured, network-capable Windows Media PC. And when Robert Oliver Francis Howard is not in the field, he's essentially the official Literature/BastardOperatorFromHell for Her Majesty's occult secret service...
%% * MsFanservice: Ramona Random in ''The Jennifer Morgue''.
* PlotTailoredToTheParty: The story, in keeping with the James Bond theme, features the typical bunch of random gadgets. Ramona also [[DiscussedTrope mumbles about this in a conversation with Bob]], much to his confusion. [[spoiler:[[DoubleSubversion Doubly subverted]]--near the end of the story, Bob [[InspirationNod muses]] that he ended up using all the gadgets except for an unmodified Zippo lighter that "he's going to keep". It then ends up playing an essential role in the epilogue.]]
* SarcasticConfession: The Blofeldian supervillain jokingly claims that his plans for world domination are all for [[RightHandCat Fluffy's]] sake. [[spoiler:"Fluffy" is the vessel for the mind of the ancient EldritchAbomination that he plans on resurrecting.]]
* ScrewDestiny: At the end, [[spoiler:Bob breaks the Bond destiny]] by proposing to Mo.
* SunglassesAtNight: The villain's mooks. Bob wonders why, and it turns out [[spoiler:it's because they're wearing eyeliner, which their boss can use to monitor their eyes and ears. Since they have stock options, they don't mind, but the shades are because it's hard to take a guard wearing eyeliner seriously.]]
* ThisPageWillSelfDestruct: Happens to Bob's Powerpoint briefing when he takes too long and doesn't get to finish it. Angleton is less than pleased, and resorts to sending him future briefings in his dreams.
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