The Black Butterfly, by Mark Gatiss
Famous as one quarter of the League of Gentlemen, Mark Gatiss is the proud owner of a grotesque streak a mile wide. His Lucifer Box novels, of which The Black Butterfly is the third and probably last, star a decadent, late Victorian aesthete; a high-society portrait painter with a secret life as one of Her Imperial Majesty’s top secret agents.
Over the series, Lucifer Box comes across as a heady mix of Oscar Wilde, Sherlock Holmes and James Bond. He is a wit, a dandy, a poly-sexual lothario, and according to his creator, “a rotter but not a complete shit”. In short, Lucifer Box is great fun.
Each book pastiches a different popular genre. The Vesuvius Club is Sherlock Holmes versus a James Bond master villain, in steam driven, fin de siecle London. The Devil In Amber transported the series to the 1930s and is a Dennis Wheatley/John Buchan-esque thriller, set amid blue-shirted, devil-worshipping, fascists. Now comes The Black Butterfly, and an ageing Lucifer Box finds himself firmly in the world of Ian Fleming’s James Bond, as he battles his own decrepitude and another would-be world conquering, super villain in Istanbul, Jamaica and London.
The Lucifer Box books are decadent and depraved adventure stories that revel in camp, grotesque absurdity. They are also loving pastiches with a keen eye for the detail of the genres they subvert. There is no stone Gatiss leaves unturned, no depth he is not willing to plumb in creating his perverted, subverted world and how much you warm to it may depend on how much you like the genres, the League of Gentlemen and whether or not you find it funny that featured characters include Tom Bowler, Midsomers Knight, Kingdom Kum and the half-Turkish half-Geordie crime lord, Whitley Bey.
In the end, The Black Butterfly is, as the inscription from The Vesuvius Club has it, A Bit of Fluff. This is A Good Thing. In Lucifer Box Gatiss has created a Flashman character romping through a world of high art and low, low camp, but what really shines through is Gatiss’ love of words, his affection for the source material and a fully-fledged sense of decadent, twisted playfulness. The Black Butterfly is a heady, frothy delight.
NewsNow
Literature News 24/7-
The Bookgeeks Interview
Simon Kernick
Simon Kernick is one of Britain’s most exciting new thriller writers. He arrived on the crime writing scene with his highly acclaimed debut novel The Business of Dying, the story of a corrupt cop moonlighting as a hitman. However, Simon’s big breakthrough came with his novel Relentless which was selected by Richard and Judy for [...]
-
Latest Competition
Five copies of John le Carré’s Smiley vs Karla Trilogy to be won
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy was one of the big film releases of 2011, and to celebrate its release on DVD we have five copies of John le Carré’s Smiley vs Karla Trilogy to be won – consisting of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Honourable Schoolboy and Smiley’s People.
Latest Bookbitz reviews
2 Comments on The Black Butterfly, by Mark Gatiss
Even though this book fits my preferred genre – there’s also loads of rubbish out there and I don;t have the time to peruse the bookshelves SP’s pithy review pushed all my buttons – bought and read the book and he was bang on and i will get the other two
thanks
Like Sean, I too read this book after reading SP’s review and boy was it a great reccomendation.
The League of very good stories……………..
Thanks Simon
Let us know your thoughts below