I quite like Robert Harris, I've read Enigma, The Ghost, Fatherland, Archangel and Pompeii. His stories always come across as very well researched and I like his style of writing. I think that when you read a book like Pompeii you have to just choose to ignore the fact that the language isn't appropriate for the time, that's what I did and I enjoyed it. I can't really remember much of it now, I read it months ago, but I do recall really liking the engineer and I enjoyed how he interacted with everyone else, as a sort of outsider.