''I, Lucifer'' is an

action-adventure An action-adventure game is a video game genre, video game hybrid genre that combines core elements from both the action game and adventure game genres. Definition An action adventure game can be defined as a game with a mix of elements f ...

novel by

Peter O'Donnell Peter O'Donnell (11 April 1920 – 3 May 2010) was an English writer of mysteries and of comic strips, best known as the creator of '' Modesty Blaise'', an action heroine/undercover trouble-shooter. He was also an award-winning gothic h ...

first published in 1967, featuring the character of

Modesty Blaise ''Modesty Blaise'' is a British comic strip featuring a fictional character of the same name, created by author Peter O'Donnell and illustrator Jim Holdaway in 1963. The strip follows Modesty Blaise, an exceptional young woman with many talen ...

, whom O'Donnell had created for a

comic strip A comic strip is a Comics, sequence of cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often Serial (literature), serialized, with text in Speech balloon, balloons and Glossary of comics terminology#Captio ...

several years earlier. It was the third novel to feature the character. ''I, Lucifer'' introduces

parapsychology Parapsychology is the study of alleged psychic phenomena (extrasensory perception, telepathy, teleportation, precognition, clairvoyance, psychokinesis (also called telekinesis), and psychometry (paranormal), psychometry) and other paranormal cla ...

, a theme that would recur in later books in the Modesty Blaise series; Willie Garvin has the ability to predict danger by his ears prickling, and a villain has the ability to predict future events. The novel also introduces the secondary character Steven Collier, a parapsychologist, who makes numerous future appearances in both the comic strip and the novels. The titular character, depicted as an insane young man who believes himself to be the overlord of the underworld, demonstrates the ability to predict natural deaths.

Plot summary

Modesty Blaise and Willie Garvin are in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

. Modesty is invited to dinner by René Vaubois, head of the

Deuxième Bureau The ''Deuxième Bureau de l'État-major général'' ("Second Bureau of the General Staff") was France's external military intelligence agency from 1871 to 1940. It was dissolved together with the Third Republic upon the armistice with Germany. ...

(the French Intelligence Service), on a floating restaurant on the

Seine The Seine ( , ) is a river in northern France. Its drainage basin is in the Paris Basin (a geological relative lowland) covering most of northern France. It rises at Source-Seine, northwest of Dijon in northeastern France in the Langres plat ...

. René asks Modesty for advice regarding a case. High-level people worldwide are receiving death threats, and those who don't pay a ransom end up dead. Most of the deaths are revealed to be natural. Willie, waiting on the river bank for Modesty's return, encounters Chuli, a criminal whose speciality is planting bombs. Vaubois' car has been wired with explosives. When Modesty, Willie, Vaubois, and Stephen Collier leave the scene, they are followed by a car full of underworld killers, trying to take down Vaubois. Lucifer, a young man with a ruined mind who had been studying to go into the church when he was seduced by a woman and suffered a nervous breakdown, becoming convinced that he was the source of all sin, the devil himself. A pair of aging puppeteers, Seff and Regina, unable to get work when the

music hall Music hall is a type of British theatrical entertainment that was most popular from the early Victorian era, beginning around 1850, through the World War I, Great War. It faded away after 1918 as the halls rebranded their entertainment as Varie ...

s closed down, turned to crime. After discovering Lucifer's ability to predict natural deaths, Seff has created a worldwide protection racket. Modesty is taken prisoner at their base on

Sylt Sylt (; ; Söl'ring North Frisian: ) is an island in northern Germany, part of Nordfriesland district, Schleswig-Holstein, with a distinctively shaped shoreline. It belongs to the North Frisian Islands and is the largest island in North Fris ...

and a radio-controlled cyanide capsule is surgically implanted under her skin. The final confrontation takes place on a remote island in the

Philippines The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...

. Modesty and Willie are forced to fight a duel to the death against each other. Later in a major battle, Modesty risks everything to try to save Lucifer. 1967 British novels Modesty Blaise books Fiction about the Devil Souvenir Press books Novels by Peter O'Donnell {{1960s-spy-novel-stub