Product Description

A sweltering week in late August. Where better to enjoy the last days of summer than on the beautiful Bay of Naples? But even as Rome's richest citizens relax in their villas around Pompeii and Herculaneum, there are ominous warnings that something is going wrong.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5089 in Books
• Published on: 2009-10-01
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: 7.75" h x 1.00" w x 5.05" l, .63 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 416 pages

Features

• New
• Mint Condition
• Dispatch same day for order received before 12 noon
• Guaranteed packaging
• No quibbles returns

Amazon.co.uk Review
Certain thriller writers burst upon the scene with considerable impact: Forsyth with The Day of the Jackal, Cruz Smith with Gorky Park and Robert Harris with the masterly Fatherland. Interestingly, of these three authors, by far the most consistent has been Harris, and his new novel, Pompeii is in some ways his most audacious offering yet, a brilliantly orchestrated thriller-cum-historical recreation that plays outrageous tricks with the reader's expectations.

As in the equally adroit Enigma, Harris takes a familiar historical event (there, the celebrated code-breakers at Bletchley Park, here the volcanic obliteration of an Italian city in AD79) and seamlessly weaves a characteristically labyrinthine plot in and around the existing facts. But that's not all he does here: few novelists who (unlike Harris) make a speciality of ancient history for their setting pull off the sense of period quite as impressively as the author does here. As the famous catastrophe approaches, we are pleasurably immersed in the sights, sounds and smells of the Ancient World, each detail conjured with jaw-dropping verisimilitude.

Harris's protagonist is the engineer Marcus Attilius, placed in charge of the massive aqueduct that services the teeming masses living in and around the Bay of Naples. Despite the pride he takes in his job, Marcus has pressing concerns: his predecessor in the job has mysteriously vanished, and another task is handed to Marcus by the scholar Pliny: he is to undertake crucial repairs to the aqueduct near Pompeii, the city in the shadow of the restless Mount Vesuvius. And as Marcus faces several problems--all life threatening--an event approaches that will make all his concerns seem petty.

Other writers have placed narratives in the shadow of this most famous of volcanic cataclysms, but Harris triumphantly ensures that his characters' individual dramas are not dwarfed by implacable nature; Marcus is a vividly drawn hero: complex, conflicted and a canny synthesis of modern and ancient mindsets. Some may wish that Harris might return to something closer to our time in his next novel, but few who take this trip into a dangerous past will be able to resist Harris's spellbinding historical saga. --Barry Forshaw

Review
Blazingly exciting... Harris, as Vesuvius explodes, gives full vent to his genius for thrilling narrative... pulse-rate-speeding masterpieces of suffocating suspense and searing action Sunday Times Breakneck pace, constant jeopardy and subtle twists of plot... a blazing blockbuster Daily Mail Harris has done a tremendous job in evoking life in ancient Italy... I am lost in admiration at his energy and skill Mail on Sunday The long drawn-out death agony of the two cities is brilliantly done. Explosive stuff indeed Daily Telegraph Robert Harris's Pompeii is his best yet: as explosive as Etna, as addictive as a thriller, as satisfying as great history Daily Telegraph Gripping, topical and dauntingly intelligent Sunday Times A stunning novel... The subtlety and power of its construction holds our attention to the end The Times A whole community, buried in volcanic ash 2000 years ago, has been brought to life... Stirring and absorbing Sunday Telegraph A supremely good piece of storytelling, most impressively researched Guardian

Tom Holland, Daily Telegraph
‘Britain’s leading thriller writer… Explosive stuff, indeed – and yes, it goes with a bang’