The Vesuvius Club

Lucifer Box is the darling of the Edwardian belle monde: portrait painter, wit, dandy and rake - the guest all hostesses must have. And most do. But few of his connections or conquests know that Lucifer Box is also His Majesty's most daring secret agent, at home in both London's Imperial grandeur and the underworld of crazed vice that seethes beneath. And so of course when Britain's most prominent scientists begin turning up dead, there is only one man his country can turn to. Lucifer Box ruthlessly deduces and seduces his way from his elegant townhouse at Number 9 Downing Street (somebody has to live there),to the seediest stews in Naples, in search of the mighty secret society that may hold the fate of the world in its claw-like hands - the Vesuvius Club.