Book of the Month - By Kathleen Thorne

The Pompeii Syndrome
By David Rice

Published by Mercier
Cost € 8.70

This is a frightening book even if it is a novel. Furthermore it is meant to be frightening. It all began when the author visited Pompeii one hot summer's day five years ago. Here, as a result of excavations in the 1930s, one can walk the streets of the 2000-year-old town, see the ruts made by the chariots, view the old bakery, the brothel, or the frozen-in-time shapes of humans and animals.

In other words, one can have a complete awareness of the people and how they lived out their day-to-day lives there, all of two millennia ago. But these people lived cheek by jowl with the active volcano, Vesuvius – and there's the rub. They lived at the foot of a belching monster that could blow its top at any moment destroying them all.

However, familiarity breeds contempt. They took Vesuvius for granted and then one day the inevitable happened: Vesuvius blew up and hurled tons and tons of hot ash on Pompeii, burying all who lived there.

¨The author posits the theory that we too are living beside a dangerous monster. It squats in the shape of a nuclear site on the other side of the Irish Sea on the Cumbrian coast. Could it too blow its top? The author says, yes it could, and probably will.

The Pompeii Syndrome creates a scenario which shows how this could happen. In Britain journalists are beginning to be aware of the flaws in this nuclear installation. We follow the story of Meg Watkins as she becomes drawn into the nasty secrets of the place. Her newspaper at first is enthusiastic but eventually orders her to back off. She refuses and through her we see the British side of events as they unfold.

In Ireland, Detective Sergeant Jack Stokes of the Garda Siochana becomes suspicious of the activities of some Middle Eastern immigrants who own or work in a factory in County Galway.

Unfortunately a politician has become friendly with the sheik that finances these projects – thus making the sheik untouchable.

Several suspicious 'accidents' and suicides occur and Jack Stokes increasingly finds connections between these events. However right up to the end he misses one major link in the chain of events. When the penny drops it is too late.

Eastern terrorists – for that is what they really are – achieve their aim and fly a suicide plane into the Cumbrian nuclear site? The consequences would be apocalyptic and truly terrifying.

The scientific details in The Pompeii Syndrome are meticulously researched. The story line is plausible. It is different from the usual thriller type novel in that its intention is to be prophetic. There certainly are lessons to be learned. But will we learn them? Or like the people of Pompeii, will we continue on our merry way, ignoring what we do not want to acknowledge, and end up in a situation of total mayhem and destruction? Read the book and decide for yourself.

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