The Vesuvius Club by Mark Gatiss

Lucifer Box, a bizarre cross between James Bond and Oscar Wilde (Edwardian dandy and sexual adventurer on His Majesty's Secret Service) is on a mission to find out where scientists are disappearing to and the save world. Not quite as great as it sounds. I admit that I have a huge weakness for early Sherlock and Doctor Who, so I thought this would be a fun read. And it was, but all I could think was how this story would really shine to its fullest advantage as produced by the BBC with their delightfully substandard visual effects and with a tall, high-cheekboned suave actor in the main role. It's pretty formulaic, and the plot progresses in exactly the way all of the Doctor Who plots do (minus the time/space travelling). But not being produced for popular television gave Gatiss an opportunity to write more cheeky sexually explicit (but not too explicit) scenes that I thought were quite fun. A lot of the descriptions were unnecessary and annoying, because it was really hard to visualize what various machines and locations were supposed to look like (again, really feeling the need for the BBC visual effects and props department). I also had a problem with how racist, sexist, and generally prejudiced Lucifer was, I understand that it's part and parcel to the setting, but it would have been nice to see some of those views challenged instead of just being left there. After getting used to reading postmodern novels, I found a lot of literary/historical references quite heavy-handed and pointless, but that's probably just me. Anyways, not a novel to introspection or ideas, but a fun and not very memorable read that made me laugh a few times. Could be worse.