Historical thriller by celebrated author

The foul fingers of World War II are everywhere these days, including in Leonard Rosen’s “The Tenth Witness,” a prequel to his wildly successful first novel, “All Cry Chaos.”

This book introduces us to Henri Poincare, brilliant engineer and sensitive humanist. He and his partner have landed a contract from Lloyd’s of London to build a platform in the Dutch Wadden Sea, from which they hope to recover the 18th century gold-laden shipwreck, the Lutine. He meets a girl, Liesel Kraus, an heiress with her brother, Anselm, to Kraus Steel. They unsurprisingly fall in love.

Henri learns that her father, Otto Kraus, made steel for Hitler using Drutte concentration camp slave labor. By improbable coincidence, Henri’s honorary Uncle Isaac had been one of those Drutte slaves. Moreover, he was one of 10 witnesses who signed an affidavit attesting to Otto’s Schindler-esque benevolence.

As his relationship with Liesel becomes more serious, Henri learns more about the Kraus family and their questionable business practices in developing countries. The affidavit doesn’t add up. Then, suddenly, the witnesses start dying. Henri is determined to get to the bottom of it.

The action takes off at this point, and not a moment too soon. There are globetrotting clandestine meetings, Nazi archives, murders, romance and technology — all this against the backdrop of a quest for sunken treasure. While many twists and turns are foreseeable, just as many are not.

Artistically, the book is uneven but Rosen shows flashes of exceptional craftsmanship. His turns of phrases and descriptions bring his characters to life, and those characters are the life of this book. We bask in the warmth of Henri’s genuine heart as he marvels over a Christmas gift basket of fruit. Likewise, we shiver at Anselm’s dinner table comment, “business is war conducted by other means.”

It is a challenge to incorporate Nazi horrors into a novel and not have their toxicity overwhelm the plot. Rosen has passed this test by wisely focusing his storyline on out-of-the-ordinary topics. He treats us to the fruits of his research about the broad tidal mudflats of the Dutch Wadden Sea, the dangerous practices of ship-breaking and precious metal stripping, and the engineering feat of recovering an 18th century gold-laden sunken ship. We even learn about South African Boerboels, 175 lb. dogs bred to defend the homestead against such predators as hyenas and lions (and, as it turns out, against nosy, amateur French sleuths).

Rosen’s first novel garnered universal praise and five coveted prizes. “The Tenth Witness” is not of that caliber. The advantage, however, of having read the sequel (albeit a prequel) first is that that debut gem still lies ahead.

SHELLEY A. SACKETT (shelleya.sackett@gmail.com) is a Providence native residing on Boston’s North Shore.  This article originally appeared in the Jewish Journal, Massachusetts, and is reprinted with per-mission.

The Tenth Witness by Leonard Rosen, The Permanent Press, 2013