A review by annasirius
Devil in Amber by Mark Gatiss
2.0
I quite enjoyed the first installment in the Lucifer Box series, but I could not warm up to this. Maybe the novelty has worn off, maybe I was just not in the right mood.
The language was once more very engaging, but there was little to enamor me to the protagonist. He's self-absorbed (nothing new there) and incompetent, strutting through the world fancying himself a super-spy (er, THE super-spy) without, however, ever bothering to come up with a strategy or (dare I be so bold as to suggest?) paying attention to his surroundings to make sure his secret meetings are not watched/violently disrupted. Lucifer Box in all his dandy arrogance worked so well because despite his flaws, I trusted him to guide me through an interesting story. Here, he does not guide but stumble and follow blindly, and the antagonist left me half yawning, half annoyed to see yet again another Fascist/Satanist action adventure unfold.
Having seen (and disliked) series 3 of Sherlock, I feel a tendency to over-the-top plots and hilariousness to the detriment of plausibility is becoming a dominant streak in Gatiss' work.
The language was once more very engaging, but there was little to enamor me to the protagonist. He's self-absorbed (nothing new there) and incompetent, strutting through the world fancying himself a super-spy (er, THE super-spy) without, however, ever bothering to come up with a strategy or (dare I be so bold as to suggest?) paying attention to his surroundings to make sure his secret meetings are not watched/violently disrupted. Lucifer Box in all his dandy arrogance worked so well because despite his flaws, I trusted him to guide me through an interesting story. Here, he does not guide but stumble and follow blindly, and the antagonist left me half yawning, half annoyed to see yet again another Fascist/Satanist action adventure unfold.
Having seen (and disliked) series 3 of Sherlock, I feel a tendency to over-the-top plots and hilariousness to the detriment of plausibility is becoming a dominant streak in Gatiss' work.