Stephanie Jane reviewed Black Butterfly by Mark Gatiss
Not as good as the first two
3 stars
Good but not great. Black Butterfly is the third of the Lucifer Box spy trilogy and now our ageing hero is in the time of the new Queen Elizabeth. Unfortunately I think it is the time period, or lack of it, which lets Black Butterfly down. Gatiss still invents a wonderfully implausible plot, ridiculously named characters and splendid escapades. However, what made Vesuvius Club such a great read for me was its steampunky sense of period and the equivalent just doesn't come across in Black Butterfly. That said, I have still read the whole trilogy multiple times - praise indeed - and all three are fun, but they seem to fade along with Lucifer. Perhaps that's the point?