Book 96: Pompeii by Robert Harris

I had seen this book on one of my parents' bookshelves for at least a decade, and it had always intrigued me, because I didn't quite know how a book about a historical volcanic eruption could manage to have suspense and intrigue and all that since, well, we know what happens. But it was also mentioned in Nick Hornby's book (the author of Pompeii is his brother-in-law), and that plus my curiosity about just how this story could work was enough to make me finally pick up and read it.

The answer to the question of how do you build in suspense for a natural disaster is, apparently, aqueducts. The main character is Marcus, an engineer who has just arrived in nearby Misenum after the engineer in charge of the aqueduct supplying the string of cities including Pompeii has disappeared. He's surrounded by corruption and incompetence, and I'll admit that I spent the first half of the book wondering what possible relevance any of this intrigue could have given the eruption the reader knows is coming. But it all ties together beautifully, and both the historical description and the lives of these invented characters are compelling enough to pull you along through the story. This book was exactly what I wanted to read in the first month or so post-election, for whatever reason, and I really enjoyed it.

Grade: A