This starts very much like a normal thriller/crime story, yet it evolves into so much more. I found it fascinating that it was set in the Netherlands, with the police detective being of Afghan origin. This brought a lot of interest to the story. It was quite complex, but not too many characters or events that it wasn’t easy to keep track of them all. The author definitely doesn’t mind killing his characters off! You can definitely see this as a television series, rivalling those scandi dramas.
I normally like twists at the end of a story, but this almost had me screaming. When I looked back I saw that it is the first of a trilogy, so perhaps it wasn’t as bad as it seemed? I certainly hope so, and await with fascination the next part of this story. I received a review copy but I must admit I did not expect to enjoy it as much as I did!

Farah Hafez fled to the Netherlands as a young girl, a refugee from the war in Afghanistan. Years later, now a journalist with a Dutch paper she realises that a young Afghan boy, who was an apparent victim of a hit and run, was actually trafficked to the country to be sexually abused by powerful politicians and businessmen. Although not an investigative journalist, she is determined to uncover the story and expose the perpetrators.
This is a fast paced thriller, with the action taking place not only in Amsterdam but in Kabul, Moscow and Johannesburg. There are many twists and turns with a truly unexpected and explosive ending. This book is the first in a trilogy and I cannot wait to read the next one.

A real page turner, love this type of cliff hanger novel. Will definitely look out for this author in future

Thanks to Net Galley & Pengiuin UK for an ARC of this book in exchange for a review.
The story is set in Amsterdam and begins with a young boy, who is dressed in girls clothing, being seriously hurt in a hit & run accident. Why has the boy been left for dead & where did he come from. Farrah who is a journalist is on the scene when he is brought in to hospital and makes it her business to find out more
There is a lot going on in this book, politics, history, corruption, paedaphile ring, violence and murder. There are a few strong well created characters, Farrah the journalist, Danielle who is a doctor and two detectives.

This is the best read I have had in a while. The characters are very well drawn. The story is original and gripping. As part of a trilogy, the next two parts are eagerly awaited. Every character seems to carry issues from a troubled past but that is partly what makes it so unusual and compelling.

I quite enjoyed this story but I did find the narrative a bit disjointed at times. Authors usually have several themes running through a story but i found that the way this was written could be confusing at times. The change of theme was often sudden and, for me, disrupted the story rather than enhancing it.
I liked the strong characters and enjoyed the shock as one of them succumbed to preassure and 'did the wrong thing'
I would recommend it - but with reservations

Butterfly on The Storm begins with the discovery of a child, injured in a hit and run on the outskirts of Amsterdam. The child is dressed in exotic girls clothing, jewellery and make up but the emergency services soon realise that this is not a little girl but a young boy. Farrah Hafez is an up an coming journalist, who finds herself pulled into the boys story when she translates for the doctors. She quickly realises what has been happening to the boy and makes it her crusade to protect him and others at any cost.

If this book had concentrated a little more on Farrah I think I would have liked this book. As it was there are too many characters and because of this you never really get the chance to care about any of them. At just over 500 pages it's way too long for the story it tells and I struggle to see how this will extend over three books. That said it does leave some mighty cliff hangers and had I enjoyed it more I would have been curious to see what happened next. But as it is I think I'll leave it here. Maybe one just for the existing fans of Dutch crime novels.

Thank you Netgalley and publishers for a copy of this novel for an honest review.

In essence Butterfly on the Storm is a great book. It's based on a complex plot that is well thought out and well delivered (although saying that I couldn't help but think that maybe things tied up a little too well at times, although I don't begrudge this as Walter sold it pretty convincingly).

I must admit that early on I battled a little with how certain scenes were narrated (one example was the wet t-shirt scene), and I tended to attribute these to translation intricacies. Regardless, this played on my mind a little too often, and I couldn't help but question what was lost (or at least not as great) because of the translation.

I really enjoyed getting a feel for Netherlands and a bit of its culture.
Additionally I enjoyed the characters and their interactions.

Walter Lucius also had a tendency to describe a scene from multiple aspects and through numerous view points and interactions which was very enjoyable.

All in all an enjoyable read.

Thank you NetGalley and Penguin UK – Michael Joseph for a copy in exchange for an honest review

This wasn't for me. It was a good story but had so much going on with all the different characters that I found it a lot to take in and remember. I also felt that some parts of the story flowed better then others.

Wow, fantastic, disturbing, gripping, well written book. Highly recommend this book. Can't wait to read the next in the Trilogy

This book has too many big issues: police corruption, international terrorism, paedophila. In my opinion, the author would have been better choosing one and covering it in more depth. There were too many main characters so you didn't get to know them fully and the plot meandered slowly at times. The book may have benefited from being about two hundred pages shorter, with a more precise storyline. Ultimately disappointing, as the author can clearly write. Perhaps it needed better editing?

If you want to go on a journey, then this debut book is for you - it's fast paced, with plenty of twists & turns to keep you hooked. The main opening storyline unravels to introduce you to an array of sinister plots with some quite complex main characters.

My only criticism would be - because the story is extremely well detailed, I feel some of this overpowered the characters making it difficult to completely get to know and relate to them.

That said, I am looking forward to getting gripped in the second instalment of this trilogy

This is a tense thriller from the outset with a dramatic crime, which is not what it initially seems and becomes even more complex with every revelation and development of the plot. The two detectives are unusual and not always sympathetic, but we become drawn into their individual lives and backstories and begin to care whether they will succeed in their discovery of the truth. The other main characters are interesting, but not always fully drawn, possibly to develop further in future novels. This is my main complaint about the book, however: the fact that it is the first in a trilogy - something I had missed before starting - means that there are unresolved threads and loose ends to be taken up in the next installment, and I found it rather frustrating to be left on something of a cliffhanger at the end of this novel. Rather a disappointment for me; I will be unlikely to tune into the second...

Superb. Looking forward to the second and third book in this trilogy. Reminds me of the Millennium trilogy by Stieg Larsson.

The premise of this book was really interesting, and initially I was engrossed in the book. However, each chapter is narrated by different characters who give their thoughts on every action. This slows the story down unnecessarily which meant it wasn't the thrilling page turner I had expected.

The plot is by far the best thing about this book. The story is interesting and very well written, so it is a little disappointing that the characters and their narrative distracts from what could be a great, gripping story.

I would read more of this author's work as I think he is a great storyteller.

Although I wasn't overly impressed with the writing or characterisation, I have to admit that I found it hard to put down. The pace is quite compelling even if the characters and plot seem at times to be overdone. The end left the reader wondering if the heroine had been killed off. Given that it is advertised as part of a trilogy, one suspects that she will have lived to fight another day!

When I started this book I did not expect a political thriller. Maybe I overlooked something in the blurb, but if I had known it, I probably would not have read “Butterfly on the Storm”. But I did and while I think the story was well researched and interesting I will probably not read the other books in this trilogy. I liked but was not enthusiastic about “Butterfly in the Storm”. I expected more of everything: more tension, more about the boy, more investigation and frankly also more cruelty. The subject of the story is so cruel and hard to understand that it was a little bit too soft.
I chose to read this book and all opinions in this review are my own and completely unbiased. Thank you, NetGalley and Penguin UK!

This is a novel that grabs you by the throat from the upshot. A girl has been found in the middle of a country road. It’s a hit and run. Paramedics and police arrive. While examining the child, they discover that the she is actually a he. The boy is dressed in girls’ clothing, makeup and jewellery. He is rushed to the hospital where journalist Farah Hafez so happens to be, having come to check up on her opponent in a martial arts tournament who she hospitalised. She hears the boy speak, recognises his language as her mother tongue, talks to him, becomes emotionally involved from there.

The mystery of the boy is further deepened by the discovery of a burning station wagon nearby, two charred corpses within. When Farah goes to investigate, she happens upon a nearby deserted villa. There is evidence of a shootout and people dragged through the gravel.

Farah isn’t the only people who are affected by the boy and the circumstances surrounding his discovery. There’s Danielle, the trauma doctor who accompanied the paramedics and administered first aid to him on the road. There’s the two cops tasked with cracking the case and bringing the perpetrators to justice, one older, jaded, corrupt, his partner younger and idealistic.

There’s a lot going for this novel and I can see why it’s been compared to Stieg Larsson’s Millennium series. Farah and her journalism are centre stage in the same way that Mikael Blomkvist was in Larsson’s work. But whereas Blomkvist was relatively straight (Lisbeth Salander being the quirky one) Farah Hafez has issues of aggression and can’t help but stray when in a relationship. She’s relatively well-drawn as a character, as are many of the lesser characters. This is a plus for the book, as there is quite an extensive cast of supporting players. Bar a few of the baddies who can be a little one-dimensional, most of this supporting cast are fleshed out nicely.

That said there were some issues I had with the author’s characterisation of Farah Hafez. At one point, she cheats on her partner. She has commitment issues, I get that. She thinks he’s making too much of a fuss, becoming too antagonist to her. I get that too. But unfortunately, the author steps into Farah’s head at this point, writes this scene from her point of view and her thoughts on this are cold. I’m no prude, I’m not moralising, but here he needlessly sheds our sympathy. There are a couple of moments like this, where Farah comes across as unfeeling and as a reader I felt myself recoil slightly from her. I have no problem with unlikeable protagonists, I read a lot of noir. But when a character is sold to you as likeable, and then they do something to make you turn against them, it’s more than a little disconcerting.

There are some problems too with the odd plot point. Mainly these surround police procedure. At the start of the novel, the police just cordon off the road, assuming the boy to be just an “ordinary” hit and run. This, even though the child ran into the middle of the road in the middle of the night, seemingly came out of nowhere. This was despite the discovery that he was dressed as a girl. At no point did they think this odd, think to search the woods. It is left for Farah to alert them to the fact that they ought to look at the nearby villa. Nor do they immediately link the boy to the nearby burning car, despite their relative proximity. When Farah first goes to the scene after the boy is brought into the hospital, the crime scene investigators let her breach the cordon and fall into conversation with her. This simply wouldn’t happen with modern law enforcement. Don’t get me wrong, I get that this is a novel and some things need be sacrificed to creative licence, but some of this was just more than a step too far.

One final criticism is that Butterfly On The Storm, which apparently is the first of a trilogy, tries to fit too much into its plot. It encompasses Afghanistan (where Farah and the boy hail from), corruption in Amsterdam (where the novel is set), corruption and organised crime in South Africa, and oligarchs, corruption and organised crime in Russia. At risk of giving spoilers, towards the end, the novel even touches on Chechen terrorism. For example, in just one chapter the 1999 Moscow apartment bombings (and the surrounding conspiracy theories) and the Moscow theatre siege of 2002 are alluded too. Before any readers of this review panic, I’m not giving too much away here, as all this really is just a minor part of the plot which pops up in just a handful of chapters. My point in mentioning this is that there is more than enough here for another book. If the next two in the trilogy are equally crammed with ideas, one has to wonder why not just write a longer series? Why not let the stories breath?

Having said all this, I need to end on a positive. For none of these points ruined the book for me. On the contrary, I thoroughly enjoyed this novel. Butterfly On The Storm is a compelling, engrossing read. It succeeds despite its technical glitches and rough edges. I certainly will read the rest of the trilogy and the author, Walter Lucius, is one to watch.

Extremely grateful to the publishers and NetGallery for the opportunity to read this book ahead of publication. I have not been paid for providing this review.
This was a real page turner, the chapters short enough that it hooked you in to just read one more and then one more. The story itself revolves around the discovery of an Afghan boy found unconscious on a road outside Amsterdam. As the investigation by the police and a journalist evolves the story move from Amsterdam to South Africa to Russia as the mystery deepens before the background of what had happened to the young boy emerges and the discovery of the identity of those in positions of power behind the incident.
Part one of a trilogy. Can't wait for the next installment.