Thanks to a near-death experience, Jamie Smith can commute across dimensions to the heavens, home of the invisible machinery behind our world. Along with his scary colleague Keziah Mordant, he has been recruited into an eccentric organization that tries to change things on earth by fixing and steering broken souls through the many hazards of the heavens: bad moods, clouds of anxiety, vortexes of self-loathing.
Mark Bright, Keziah's delicious new boyfriend, is trying to set up a cafe and homelessness hub on earth. In the heavens, evil spirits plot to destroy it, and to send Jamie and Keziah into the celestial sewer system, The Sump of Lost Dreams.
Helped in the battle by the prophet Jonah and an ancient female physicist, Jamie and Keziah visit the souls of two town planners, patch up some old sinners, try to out-think some very stupid beings, fight each other, a lot, and even argue with the Personification of Divine Wisdom. Along the way, Keziah fears being found out by happiness and Jamie goes on a circular tour of the foods of Southeast Asia.
The Sump of Lost Dreams is about when you think you've lost everything, you might be right.