Pompeii by Robert Harris

This fictionalized account of Pompeii is told from the eyes of Marcus Attilius Primus, an upstanding Roman engineer rushes to repair an aqueduct in the shadow of Mount Vesuvius, which, in A.D. 79, is getting ready to blow its top. Young Marcus Attilius Primus becomes the aquarius of the great Aqua Augusta when its former chief engineer disappears after 20 years on the job. When water flow to the coastal town of Misenum is interrupted, Attilius convinces the admiral of the Roman fleet-the scholar Pliny the Elder-to give him a fast ship to Pompeii, where he finds the source of the problem in a burst sluiceway.

Attilius meets Corelia, the defiant daughter of a vile real estate speculator, who supplies him with documents implicating her father and Attilius's predecessor in a water embezzlement scheme. Attilius has bigger worries, though: a climb up Vesuvius reveals that an eruption is imminent. Before he can warn anyone, he's ambushed by the double-crossing foreman of his team, Corvax, and a furious chase ensues. As the volcano spews hot ash, Attilius fights his way back to Pompeii in an attempt to rescue Corelia.

It took me awhile to really get into this book as I found the politics a bit mundain.  But I didn't expect to find such suspense as the novel literally tells the story 48 hours before the demise of Pompeii.  It has been on a my reading list for several years now and I'm glad that I finally got to it.  This is not for the faint of heart as there are some very graphic violence and torture scenes that I had to skim through.