For this group of people, Pompeii would be a wonderful place to start in your reading about the history of the ancient roman town. The final 100 pages are terrific, as good as anything Harris has done; and the last, teasing paragraph, done with the lightest of touches, is masterly. My primary interests lie in the energy industry, the environment and sustainability, but you can expect my articles to cover a wide range of topics exploring the role of geology in international development issues. Frederick Forsyth's The Day of the Jackal (1971) is generally held to be the model here, because history made it impossible that his assassin could succeed in killing De Gaulle. Harris colourfully evokes the sights and sounds of the ancient world: the "golden beaks and fan-tail sterns" of the warships out in the bay; the "Egyptians with gold rings in their ears, great muscled Nubians as black as charcoal".

POMPEII | Kirkus Reviews POMPEII | Kirkus Reviews

Marcus's only concern, however, is the great aqueduct that supplies the entire region, and why it has suddenly run dry. Attilius is undeniably the good guy, the professional who does what has to be done (and doesn't allow himself to be corrupted). More provocatively, given the importance of the US market to thriller sales, Harris also, through the use of a triumphalist epigraph from Tom Wolfe about American superiority, invites a comparison between the Roman empire's journey from smugness to destruction and imperial Washington DC. Heavner isn’t exactly mollified when Tempe, aided by retired police detective Skinny Slidel The tension is nice and high, with Attilius aware that he's in constant danger, regardless of what he does (being the aquarius when the aqueduct breaks is a bad career move for a start, and, of course, that turns out to be the least of his problems .Almost in spite of his subject matter (in truth, who would have thought that a novel about a Roman plumber could be such a pleasure to read? Attilius reluctantly agrees to follow her to her father's mansion, where he discovers that the local water supply is infused with sulfur.

Robert Harris Books | Waterstones Robert Harris Books | Waterstones

Ancient Rome is the setting for the superb new novel from Robert Harris, author of the number one bestsellers Fatherland, Enigma and Archangel. During a sweltering week in late August, as Rome's richest citizens relax in their villas around Pompeii and Herculaneum, there are ominous warnings that something is going wrong. The relationship between freedmen and freemen is portrayed pretty negatively through the interactions of the freedman Numerius Popidius Numerii libertus Ampliatus, and his old master Lucius Popidius, and the other magistrates of the city.Two things that Harris focuses heavily on the relationship between freedmen and freemen, as well as how the Roman’s perceived the gods. While exploring Vesuvius on his own, Attilius discovers Exomnius's corpse in a pit of earth choked by noxious fumes, which also kills Corax, who has come to assassinate Attilius.