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Mark Gatiss

The Vesuvius Club: A Bit of Fluff (Lucifer Box Novels) Paperback – Illustrated, 4 Oct. 2005

by Mark Gatiss (Author)

3.7 555 ratings

Book 1 of 3: Lucifer Box Novels

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Meet Lucifer Box: Equal parts James Bond and Sherlock Holmes, with a twist of Monty Python and a dash of Austin Powers, Lucifer has a charming countenance and rapier wit that make him the guest all hostesses must have. And most do. But few of his conquests know that Lucifer is also His Majesty's most daring secret agent, at home in both London's Imperial grandeur and in its underworld of despicable vice. So when Britain's most prominent scientists begin turning up dead, there is only one man his country can turn to for help. Following a dinnertime assassination, Lucifer is dispatched to uncover the whereabouts of missing agent Jocelyn Poop. Along the way he will give art lessons, be attacked by a poisonous centipede, bed a few choice specimens, and travel to Italy on business and pleasure. Aided by his henchwoman Delilah; the beautiful, mysterious, and Dutch Miss Bella Pok; his boss, a dwarf who takes meetings in a lavatory; grizzled vulcanologist Emmanuel Quibble; and the impertinent, delicious, right-hand-boy Charlie Jackpot, Lucifer Box deduces and seduces his way from his elegant townhouse at Number 9 Downing Street (somebody has to live there) to the ruined city of Pompeii, to infiltrate a highly dangerous secret society that may hold the fate of the world in its clawlike grip--the Vesuvius Club.

Book 1 of 3

Lucifer Box Novels
Print length

242 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Scribner
Publication date

4 Oct. 2005
Dimensions

13.97 x 1.52 x 21.59 cm
ISBN-10

0743283945
ISBN-13

978-0743283946
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Product description

Review

"Darkly erudite and fiendishly unputdownable -- Lucifer Box is the most likeable scoundrel since Flashman."
-- Jasper Fforde, author of The Big Over Easy and The Eyre Affair

"Gatiss mixes in The League of Gentlemen's penchant for horror with large doses of arch wit and louche laying about. It's Oscar Wilde crossed with H.P. Lovecraft....this could be the bit of fluff you've been looking for."
-- The Telegraph (London)

"In the appallingly appealing Lucifer Box, Mark Gatiss has created an anti-hero for the ages. Watching the number of chapters, then pages, dwindle, was heart-rending. No one has ever combined the seedy, the stylish, the rumbustious, the raffish, the egregious, the outrageous, the high and the low with such wit and grace."
-- Stephen Fry, author of Revenge and The Liar

"It's Gatiss's impeccable lightness of touch and huge delight in wordplay that makes this a joy. Studded with epigrams, asides, such wonderful names as Strangeways Pugg and Everard Supple, this is a wickedly written romp to put a smile on the face of anyone amused by the strange alchemy of the words 'a peculiar horror of artichokes'"
-- SFX magazine (UK)

"Lucifer Box, society darling and spy, investigates the secret Vesuvius Club. Brilliant stuff."
-- Heat magazine (UK)

"Mark Gatiss has brought his customary wit and outlandish style to the page...sharp, witty and shocking."
-- Derby Evening Telegraph (UK)

"Plenty of sly comic detail (Box lives at Number 9 Downing Street 'because someone has to') and a surrealist narrative that fans of The League of Gentlemen will recognize...kidnapped scientists, poisonous centipedes, foggy chases through London by hackney cab, and a fiendish volcano-based conspiracy that provides the big SFX climax. It's all great fun."
-- Time Out (London)

"Self-deprecatingly subtitled A bit of Fluff...Gatiss' prose is upholstered in a rather superior grade of fluff: redolent of soft leather chairs in fine gentlemen's establishments, and the cracking of whips in the basements beneath them....Set amid the decadent fleshpots of the Edwardian demi-monde, the novel introduces the raffish toast of London society, Lucifer Box, leading portraitist of the age and undercover agent on behalf of His Majesty's government....Box works his way dandyishly through a sequence of adventures which leads him to penetrate a secret Neapolitan crime ring, plus the willing rinfs of several secretive Neapolitans....perniciously addictive piece of escapism."
-- The Guardian (London)

"The preposterous Lucifer is an entertaining hero and The Vesuvius Club is a hugely enjoyable romp."
-- Image magazine (UK)

"With its quaint dust jacket and Beardsely-inspired illustrations, the book feels like a visitor from a more elegant era; it has the smell of fin de siecle about it....[Lucifer Box] belongs to a lineage which stretches from Sherlock Holmes to the indestructible James Bond, via the queasy phantasmagoria of Sax Rohmer's Fu Manchu stories...But Gatiss is more than a pasticheur; he has ambitions beyond literary ventriloquism. Midway through the story, Box is revealed to be bisexual, and we feel that this is a novel which Doyle, Stevenson, and Rider Haggard would not have been allowed to write. Giddily inventive and packed with delirious incident, it suggests a post-modern project comparable to Michael Faber's The Crimson Petal and the White."
-- The Times Literary Supplement (London)

About the Author

Mark Gatiss writes for the multiaward-winning British television comedy The League of Gentlemen, on which he portrays a debt collector, a cursed veterinarian, a dog cinema owner who has recently branched out into VHS and DVD rentals, and a Knight Rider fan, among many other characters. He also stars in the feature film The League of Gentlemen's Apocalypse and has written episodes for the rejuvenated Doctor Who television series. He lives in a laboratory with a stuffed cat.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Scribner; Illustrated edition (4 Oct. 2005)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 242 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0743283945
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0743283946
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 13.97 x 1.52 x 21.59 cm

Best Sellers Rank: 2,144,920 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- 71,249 in Humorous Fiction
- 149,915 in Contemporary Fiction (Books)
- 154,224 in Literary Fiction (Books)

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3.7 555 ratings

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A tongue-in-cheek jolly romp.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 15 April 2023

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When several British scientists turn up dead, Edwardian painter and secret agent Lucifer Box sets off across Europe to track down those responsible. Leaving his residence at 9 Downing Street, Box delves into all things seedy and debauched as he follows the clues and the dead bodies to Naples, leading him to the mysterious and deadly Vesuvius Club.

As a big fan of Mr G’s televisual delights (League of Gentlemen, Dr Who, Sherlock etc), I was keen to sample his novel-writing talents. In this first book in the Lucifer Box series, the author’s imagination is delightfully unfettered as he throws his hero into a world of spies, murder and ruthless madmen, with a bit of saucy shenanigans chucked in for good measure. While the story is good fun and highly amusing, the author’s penchant for exclamation marks and needless dialogue tags, did put me off a bit, though the Beardsleyeque illustrations add a nice touch to the Edwardian theme.

A tongue-in-cheek jolly romp.

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' Never judge a gentleman by the cleanliness of his doilies'

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 17 January 2005

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This is presented as a turn-of the century adventure novel, our hero being one Lucifer Box, one of His Majesty's secret agents, amongst other things. The style is that of 'The Thirty-Nine Steps', a Ripping Yarn involving all sorts of weird and wonderful characters.
On the whole, Gatiss has done a fine job. It must have been difficult, getting a balance between adventure and tongue-in-cheek parody, on the whole favouring the latter. Mark Gatiss has a wonderful imagination, the climax being quite cinematic in its description and scale (I can see a film coming here). And I have never read such preposterous names! Everard Supple, Lady Constance Tutt-Haffenschafft, Major Stangeways Pugg...
The presentation is excellent, with a mock-dated cover (it makes the book look as though it is an old second-hand item, marked at six shillings) and illustrations not unlike those of Aubrey Beardsley.
I enjoyed this book greatly, and look forward to further adventures of Lucifer Box. However, I would not have paid £15 for this, a book which may be read, what, twice at most? (Amazon were originally asking £9 which I thought fair). But a good read nevertheless.

9 people found this helpful

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Jolly japes!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 3 October 2010

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I bought this book based on the fact that I enjoyed 'The League of Gentlemen' BBC series immensely, enjoyed Dr Who episodes written by Mark Gatiss and also the new 'Sherlock' on the BBC and so already had a fair idea of how 'off the wall' it would be. I was not disappointed in that respect. The book is stylishly written and manages to capture the details of the Edwardian time period in which it is set very well. The dialogue is very good with one character reminiscent of one of Terry Pratchett's witches doing her 'posh voice'. The story is wildly ridiculous and delivered on the back 'blurb' and then some.

Some readers may feel uncomfortable with the sexual references scattered througout the book which ensures that this is not a book for children, however without this side of the story the main character Lucifer would not the complete 'dashing rogue' that Gatiss wants to create. Some would say that perhaps some of his writing is 'wish fulfilment', but then that could be said of so many authors (Ian Fleming springs easily to mind) and it is only perhaps because I have seen so many 'behind the scenes' interviews with the author that I get this feeling.

9 people found this helpful

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Mr. A. I. Harrison

Wicked and witty

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 21 February 2011

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This book is like it's main charactor, Mr Lucifer Box, charming, entertaining and just a tiny bit shocking in a harmless pre-watershed way.

It features an Edwardian 007 charactor licensed to kill and seeking a thrill, and who is frankly, not too fussy where he finds them!

It's a triumph of style over content as the sexually ambiguos Mr Box discovers that seemingly every one he meets is somehow connected to each other and Mount Vesuvius. Disappearing bodies, horse and carraige chases, daring escapes and a climax that was as Bondesque as you can get without having 500 men in red and blue boiler suits shooting each other in an underwater city! All this packed into about 250 pages.

At the midway stage Mr Box also acquires a man servant which then gave the whole story a sort of x rated Jeeves and Worcester feel.

In summary a very light hearted, tongue in cheek little fruity postcard of a book.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 12 April 2021

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Luxuriating in quirkiness this had potential but needed perhaps a better editor to reign back some of the self indulgences of plot and dialogue. I seemed to want to become a film with Mark Gatiss in the title role.

One person found this helpful

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Stephanie Jane (Literary Flits)

Lightly depraved escapism

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 15 January 2015

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I first read The Vesuvius Club seven years ago and it is still my favourite steampunk novel. Our hero, Lucifer Box, is wonderfully decadent and louche, his adventures as bizarre as the improbable names of his supporting cast. Allegedly set in early twentieth century London and Naples, I know other readers have criticised the writing for historical inaccuracies, but I think they've missed the point. The Vesuvius Club isn't a extensively researched historical novel, it's a fun, dark, fantasy sci-fi spy thriller or, as Mr Gatiss claims, A Bit Of Fluff. If you're into lightly depraved escapism, this is the book for you!

3 people found this helpful

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anon

Probably need a silly sense of humour

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 11 July 2020

Verified Purchase

4 stars, only because it is so different to what i usually read. Its a good read, helps if you have a silly sense of humor like me. Find myself giggling to myself.

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Skhwoody

The Vesuvius Club - a little too dandy for me....

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 12 April 2010

Verified Purchase

I got this on the strength that i am a fan of the League of Gentlemen and i like the work that Mark Gatiss does, and the novel is good (ish), but does not fire me up in any way, a little too dandy for my liking.

Do not get me wrong the story is fine, but i do not like the setting or the way it is written, might just be me, but while i enjoyed the story the style did grate on me all the way through the book.

So even though i finished it, i could have put it down at any time.

2 people found this helpful

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