Pompeii: A Novel

When compared to Harris' other historical novels Imperium and Conspirata, Pompeii is mediocre. This eBook version, though, is a complete mess. To utilize the chapter navigation you have to go back to the Contents and then click on the chapter you want, which is numbered, whereas in the text itself they are named instead of numbered. The text itself is scattered across the page and interrupted with poorly inserted designs I assume decorate the paper copy but here only serve to make the book ugly.

An historical novel about Pompeii? How could I go wrong? The answer - easily! Somehow this novel managed to make the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius and the burial of both Pompeii and Herculaneum downright boring. Probably because the first 3/4ths of the book happen BEFORE the eruption. In fact, most of the story is about an engineer trying to figure out how to fix an aqueduct and prevent a severe water shortage — when all the time, the actual problem results from early geological changes that signal the volcano is about to erupt. I wound up skipping large sections of the narrative, which might make my review a bit unfair. But that’s the way it goes.

I thought this was a very different suspense novel than others which was refreshing. Granted - you know the outcome in general, but you don't know what will happen to the characters throughout the book until the end. Robert Harris wrote pretty detailed descriptions of the surroundings and I could sense the research that went into the writing (which I appreciate). Overall a page turner and definitely a plot not often touched even though a sad one.