I read "Fatherland" and liked it. Terrific premise--that Hitler had not lost WWII--and reasonably well-made characters.Then I read "Enigma" and hated it. I kept expecting it to get better. It never did. Unlike "Fatherland," "Enigma" merely stuck to facts--the breaking of the German code in WWII. The characters were lifeless and the plot a snore."Pompeii" is more like "Enigma"--no messing with actual history; just a fictional rendition of it.And it is equally dull. I teach Latin, so I know the history and the details. The fictional characters are one-dimensional at best; more like zero-dimensional. They are predictable and uninteresting. And the plot, of course, is known beforehand. The romance has no sparks.If you want to learn some history, this book will teach you. But as a novel it is dry, dry, dry.