Pompeii by Daniel Dilworth
Pompeii was an ancient Roman-era town near the city of Naples. Naples has been a city cursed with the Mafia. The Mafia originated on the island of Sicily. The main city on Sicily is Palermo, whose football team’s home shirt is pink. Another football team to play in pink (albeit their away kit) are Wexford Youths. They were founded by Mick Wallace, a TD and developer. Wallace is known for his casual dress sense and his pretty dire haircut. Another politician with a bad haircut is Angela Merkel. Merkel is the current Chancellor of Germany. A previous holder of this job was Gustav Stresemann (who incidentally had a better haircut than Merkel.) He was chancellor in 1923, but was the Foreign Minister until his death in 1929. 1929 was also the year of the Wall Street Crash. This economic crash brought down almost all the economies in the world. However, the economy of the Soviet Union survived this pretty well, due to its anti-capitalist stance. The Soviet Union collapsed between the years 1989 and 1991, and Russia was trying to find its feet as a new democratic country. The book Archangel was written about this period by Robert Harris, who also wrote a book about an ancient town called Pompeii.