Customer Reviews
This is a VERY funny book. - By: Gillyp, 01 Dec 2008 
Laugh out loud Funny as a matter of fact, & I did, on average, about thirteen times an hour.
There's a distinct, 60's feel to it all; something to do with the cleverly-copied Aubrey Beardsley, Yellow Book look of the thing & the outrageousness of the rather-hard-to-follow plot. If this book were a film it would look like The Wrong Box or Casino Royale (the Peter Sellers movie, not the latest, hard-core version, obviously) & Peter Cook would be playing Lucifer Box.
The comedy is definitely the high-point of the novel, unfortunately, it's also what made it such a frequently annoying read. Whilst the deliciously clever, Wilde-ishly witty, hilarious asides are highly entertaining, they don't half detract from the story - but since the story isn't up to much anyway (the mind does tend to wander, I found, during all those elaborately Bond-esque cracks on Box's life), I detached my brain from all attempts at a plot & went for enjoying the funnies & the gay-sex instead.
(NB. The gay-sexin particular, whilst notin any way explicit, is deliciously titillating & thoroughly Good.)
Charlie Jackpot (I almost forgot to mention, every character has a ludicrous name & there are an awful lot of characters. This also makes things a little hard to follow, but you get used to it after a while and, since I was already ignoring the plot by the time it would have started to get annoying, I failed to find it as irritating as I no doubt would have, had I still been trying to follow the story - if you get my drift.
(Where was I? Oh yes, Charlie Jackpot...) is a delightful companion & it's overwhelmingly because of him that I'll be picking up the next bookin this series.
So, well worth a read, for sure, just don't worry too much about what's going on because that way lies madness.
Reading the book is torture - By: Emma Cresswell, 24 Jul 2008 
I have to say I was looking forward to reading this for my book club, yet sadly it wasn't worth my time. I lacked any interest for the charactersin the novel & unfortunatly did complete the book after much torture. Some members of the book club however gave this a positive feedback, stating they enjoyed the book as it was different to most novels out at the moment.
Summary:
- Boring Characters (lacking any charisma or humour)
- No inticing storyline or plot
- No decent humour
+ The book is short & only takes a day or so to read
+ I Like Mark Gatiss (just a shame he can't write)
Fun but pretentious - By: L. Young, 08 Jul 2008 Its a good story of derring-do with lots of satirical humour & odd Dickensian names adorning odd Dickensian characters. Very much something foundin a penny dreadful perhaps although much cleverer than that.
However Gatiss knows it is much cleverer than that & that is The Vesuvius Club's major failing. Lucifer Box was a good character but a bit too pretentious (that may be the point of the character but one can go too far...) & I felt as though his 'cleverer than thou' attitude appeared to reflect the author's belief of the novel.
It was fun & it was witty & I will read the next one but I thought it could have been much better than it was.
3/5
Brilliant - By: PH, 01 Jun 2008 
Brilliant story - only read this last year but am already almost finishing off the next book - Devilin Amber - & can't wait for the next due outin November.
Great stuff!!!
What a mix! - By: Joanne D'Arcy, 07 Feb 2008 This book comes across to me as a cross between, James Bond, Austin Powers with a mix of PG Wodehouse (although set slightly before his era of writing).
It is humourousin parts, rotten & delightfulin others, & very macabrein it's way of dealing with the low life of the era. (Edwardian) I was expecting more than I got with this book, it got rather full of characters at times, & took some thoughtin who they all were & what their role was. The thread of the book was fast paced with a couple of little off shoots, Christopher Miracle's problems, the role of Bella but they all got nicely tied upin the end. (Something that not all books do) Lucifer Box, the main character was rather decadentin his behaviour & with some loose morals was able to infiltrate some of the more lower as well as higher elements of society. Good will always overcome evilin these stories & there was something reassuring about this as the story gathered pace towards the end.
The set out of each chapter, started to read more like a newspaper & the added pictures was merely oddin my opinion. An interesting read, something I wouldn't have picked up before but probably not an author I would pick up again.
