Pompeii

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With trademark elegance and intelligence, Robert Harris recreates a world on the brink of disaster. Along the Mediterranean coast, the Roman empire's wealthiest citizens are enjoying the last days of summer in their luxurious villas, while the largest navy lies peacefully anchored in Misenum. Tourists flock to the seaside resorts of Baiae, Herculaneum, and Pompeii, unaware of the impending cataclysm. Only one man, young engineer Marcus Attilius Primus, is concerned. He has just taken charge of the Aqua Augusta, the vast aqueduct supplying fresh water to a quarter of a million people in nine towns around the Bay of Naples. With his predecessor missing and springs failing for the first time in generations, Attilius faces a crisis on the aqueduct's sixty-mile main line, located north of Pompeii, on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius. Attilius, decent and incorruptible, promises Pliny, the renowned scholar commanding the navy, that he can repair the aqueduct before the reservoir runs dry. He plans to travel to Pompeii to assemble an expedition, but he soon discovers that the town is rife with corruption and violence, and powerful forces—both natural and man-made—threaten to destroy him.