Lucifer Box is an over-the-top self-involved drama queen who is just as likely to kill an assassin at the behest of the British government as he is to get himself into some kind of sex-fueled trouble. This book has a lot of things I like: spies, drama, international travel, humor, ridiculous schemes -- and yet it falls completely flat. Lucifer is so stuck up it is truly a wonder he doesn't die from sheer inability to see the world around him as anything other than a machine for worshipping him. The main plot surrounds the work of a bunch of scientists, yet when you actually meet the villains they are all so stupid that maintaining the suspension of disbelief requires the reader to shut both eyes. I truly wanted to love this book as the cover related it to two of my favorite authors (Wilde and Lovecraft) and yet I couldn't manage to do so.