I am Fantômas!... I am he for whom the entire world is searching, whom none has ever seen, whom none can recognize!... I am Crime incarnated!... I am Night!... No human sees my face, because Crime and Night are featureless!... I am illimitable Power!... I am he who mocks at all the powers, at all the efforts, at all the forces!... I am Death!... I am Fantômas!

Utterly preposterous and improbable, full of unlikely coincidences, and more disguises and mistaken identities than a bagful of Shakespeare comedies, and often bafflingly confusing when the authors decide not to immediately make it clear which of the established characters are in the scene - exactly what I was anticipating!

As Souvestre and Allain were contracted to write a book per month, a certain formulaity and predictability in terms of plot are to be expected, as well as an occasional slapdash feel, but as I didn't want to be mentally exercised when I picked up this book, that was fine.

Despite knowing the ingredients, the exact dish being served is not always so certain, and there is still a lot of tension in the narrative, with part of the pleasure lying in figuring out which of the characters will turn out to be Fantômas. While for the series to continue, Fantômas must escape the clutches of Detective Juve and his journalist protege, Fandor, the interest is not if but how he will manage to evade capture.

In this instalment, espionage, military secrets and the security services are the trappings surrounding Fantômas's machinations. Written in the years approaching the Great War, there is some historical interest in the social and political anxieties being played upon, and some nationalist stereotypes about who are the ""good guys" and who are the "bad".

It's been a while since I read the previous books in the series, but this one strikes me as being more (intentionally) humorous than those.

Excellent genre fiction for when you just want to put your feet up and be swept along. ( )