Friday, August 9, 2013

Library Journal proclaims Leonard Rosen's The Tenth Witness "another winner."

In 1978, 28-year-old Henri PoincarĂ© launches an engineering consulting business by salvaging a sunken treasure ship off the Dutch coast. By chance, he falls in love with Liesel Kraus, whose family’s steel he uses in his work and whose history increasingly draws him into their Nazi roots. Henri’s beloved uncle was a slave laborer for Liesel’s father and one of ten witnesses who swore he was good to Jews. To understand his uncle’s life, Henri pursues the witnesses, but they are dying and only he suspects murder. Racing to find the last one still alive and the killer who seems to be protecting the Kraus family’s reputation, Henri is forced to pit love against justice at great personal peril. VERDICT This is a prequel to Rosen’s acclaimed mystery debut, All Cry Chaos, which was set 30 years later when Henri was working as an Interpol investigator. Rosen relies on literary background and considerable research skillfully to portray Henri’s confrontation with the nature of evil and his developing detective talents in investigating both dead Nazis and living ones. Another winner.