The Tenth Witness

By Leonard Rosen

On the night of October 9, 1799, the frigate HMS Lutine breaks apart on the shoals of the Frisian Islands off the Dutch coast. When the insurer Lloyds of London pays on the wreck, it takes ownership and plans expeditions to recoup the lost millions in gold and silver. Nearly two hundres years later, after a series of largely failed salvage operations, Lloyds tries again - this time on the strength of new technologies and a strategy devised by the gifted young engineer Henri Poincare.

It is late spring, 1978. Poincare has worked to near-exhaustion preparing for the Lutine dive. Before the salvage season begins, he takes a rare holiday: a hike at low tide across the vast, muddy flats of the Wadden Sea. His guide is Liesel Kraus - smart, able, appealing...and troubled. She and her brother Anselm, directors of Kraus Steel, are haunted by a violent history that generates both rage and an enormous, corrupting wealth. The closer Poincare draws to Liesel and Anselm, the more warped life becomes until love and a death threat compel him to investigate what no one else - aside from Interpol - will. Pain as well as treasure, he discovers, can be dredged up from the past to reshape the present.

The Tenth Witness, a prequel to the award-winning All Cry Chaos, is the tale of a man upended: a twenty-eight year old who rejects a brilliant career in engineering for an uncertain, darker one: international police work.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Permanent Press
• Release date: Aug 16, 2013
• ISBN: 9781579623197

Leonard Rosen

Translated into ten languages, Leonard Rosen's All Cry Chaos (Permanent Press, 2011) won the Macavity Award from Mystery Readers International for the best debut; was selected ForeWord Magazine's best work of fiction by an independent American press, earned an Edgar nomination for best debut, and earned finalist recognition for the Chautauqua Literary Prize and the Anthony Award. Len has contributed radio commentaries to Boston's NPR station, written best-selling textbooks on writing, and taught writing at Harvard University. The prequel to All Cry Chaos, The Tenth Witness, will be published in September 2013. To contact Len and for links to interviews and reviews, see www.lenrosenonline.com

Book preview

Heart

PART I

one

Every Christmas, for thirty years, my friend and former business partner sends me a basket of pears. With each delivery comes a note and the same unspoken question, posed in a teasing, left-leaning script: Say the word, Henri. Your desk is waiting. Best, A. C.

I’m flattered to think Alec would have me back after all this time. For most of my career I could have used the money, and I could have done without the long stretches away from home and the violence and anxiety that attend police work. But I never was much of a businessman. During those first years, I turned down jobs that offended me. I took on clients who could barely make their rent, let alone pay us. Alec and I argued. In the end I’m convinced our venture would have collapsed due to what he rightly called my aggressive naïveté.

Once he suggested I quit business to join the priesthood. I might have, had I believed in God at the time. Now that I do, I’m too old—which is fortunate because these days I know how damaged we are and think it deluded, even dangerous, to hold to my former Sunday school view of the world. I would have made a bad priest, too.

Still, it worked out, my leaving Poincaré & Chin Consulting Engineers for Interpol. I got out in time to keep both a dear friend and the illusion that Alec and I could have prospered together. Better still, each December I sit with Claire at our farmer’s table to enjoy good fruit out of season. It’s a miracle of the modern age, eating an Anjou pear in December. I take one bite and there I go: off to an orchard in the shadow of the Andes, where these little jewels are grown.

It’s Christmas Eve and my grandsons are asleep, finally. Claire dozes by the fire. Moments ago, she stirred and said, Love, come to bed. We kissed and I laid a quilt across her lap. She drifted off again.

Outside, a thin crust of snow blankets the vineyards. With Alec’s note before me, I’ll consider once more his question in good faith. Which is to say, I’ll review the events of that summer and ask: Did I choose well? Have I chosen well since? I must answer in all honesty. And if the answer is no, I will write my friend and ask him to dust off my chair.

He would do it, too.

I begin, therefore, as I have for thirty years: with the body of a man floating face down in the slack water of Terschelling Island. I can see him fighting the flood tide that runs off the North Sea. That tide is a relentless, galloping thing. The man knows it’s coming and he can’t outrun it. The water rises to his waist, his neck, his lips. Surely, he accepts his death. Why, then, the struggle? He swims until he can’t, then sinks. His eyes bulge, the neck muscles strain, and here it comes: his first submerged breath. The brine freezes his larynx. His trachea collapses to protect his lungs. He’s alive, yet. Starved for oxygen, his brain forces a second breath. More, but weaker, laryngospasms. Water leaks into his lungs. By the fifth cycle it’s over.

And the world is well rid of him.

two

In June 1977, Lloyd’s of London, the insurer, issued a request for proposals to design and operate a floating dive platform in the North Sea. Its aim: to recover lost treasure from HMS Lutine, the storied frigate that sank in a gale off the Dutch coast with a thousand bars of gold. Lloyd’s took ownership of the wreck when it paid on the insurance claim in 1799. A hundred eighty years later, new technologies like side scan sonar gave the directors confidence that this salvage would fare better than earlier ones. Curiously, though the ship sank in only six meters of water, not more than a tenth of the gold, valued in 1977 at £10,750,000, had been recovered.

Longing to get out from behind our desks, Alec and I underbid the job and won the contract. We were young but respected, two newly minted engineers ecstatic to find work out of doors, on a treasure hunt no less.

We ended up retrofitting an old coal barge in Rotterdam and, in late May 1978, hauled it into position over the Lutine where it would float for the summer season. The workload had been crushing. On the day before the salvage began, our first real day off in months, I tried shaking Alec loose from his desk to go hiking with me onto the bed of the Wadden Sea.

The Wadden sits between the Dutch mainland and several barrier islands, one of which is Terschelling, nearest our platform. Twice a day at low tide, the Wadden empties into the North Sea and leaves behind a vast muddy flat, indeed the largest tidal flat in the world. Crossing the seabed from the mainland to any of the islands is something of a Dutch national sport. Thousands undertake the trek each summer, often families ranging from grandpa to grandchild, and I wanted to join them.

At low tide there’s no danger, I told Alec, not if you go with one of the registered guides. They use walkie-talkies, ship-to-shore radios. They’ve even got a helicopter on call. It’s absolutely safe.

He crossed his arms.

It’s a walk, I continued. Mud, maybe some knee-high water here and there. And then, after five or six hours, we’ll reach Terschelling. I handed him a brochure with photos of dunes and wide, white beaches. I described the starter hike I’d taken the day before, but still he showed no interest.

It will be fun, I said. Do you remember what fun is?

We were standing in our temporary office, a fourth-floor attic in Harlingen on the Dutch mainland. The town felt more like a sixteenth-century fishing village than a modern shipping hub. There were masts in the harbor, steep tiled roofs, and working windmills.

"Fun, said Chin, is a three-letter word for lazy".

Our lone window was crusty as a cataract, and I could just make out a group gathered along the wharf and our guide. She was tall, holding a pole longer than a walking stick, shorter than a fishing rod, the better to save the weak and lame as she’d put it the day before on my starter hike. That had gone well enough to invite her for lunch and a stroll through town; and that had gone well enough for me to sign up for a second, more strenuous hike.

Alec walked to the door and opened it. We’re expected on the platform at 5:45. That’s A.M.

I grinned. Here’s my last, best offer: I’ll buy you one of those inflatable tubes—the ones that go around your waist, with a duck on the front. You’ll hit the flats looking like a Viking ship.

Five forty-five, Henri. The launch leaves the dock a half-hour before.

Learn to swim, I said.

three

By the time I climbed from the mud flats onto dry land, I looked and felt like a creature emerging from the primordial ooze. Exhausted, mud-spattered and, after a misstep in a tidal channel, half drowned, I sat heavily into a chair in a café by Terschelling harbor.

Liesel Kraus, my guide, approached from behind and clapped me on the shoulder. I rescued you. On the Wadden Sea, that means you buy the beer. Without waiting for an invitation, she sat opposite me, called the waitress by name, and held up two fingers. So, she said. You’re alive. Congratulations.

I made a show of checking my head to see if it was still attached.

I warned you. It’s not an easy trek.

"You said it would be a challenge, not a death march."

I was wet and cold, trending toward miserable. My plan was to pay for the beer, drink quickly, and find a shower and a bed where I could be left alone to sleep or die, whichever came first.

Liesel had earned that beer by shepherding a dozen tourists through to Terschelling with the efficiency of a border collie. Out on the flats she was all business. If she talked with one hiker, she’d keep an eye on the others. Every few minutes, she’d scan the horizon or check her maps and compass. She maintained regular radio contact with a lighthouse keeper. She was focused, skilled, and smart. She was also long-limbed with auburn hair.

I found myself staring.

I paid with a sopping ten guilder note, making a little show of squeezing water from it. Liesel and the waitress laughed, and I offered a toast: To my Moses of the mud flats. Cheers! This time when she laughed, I saw a woman transformed. With no one to save any longer, a beer in hand, and a young man—me!—for company, she blossomed.

If I’m Moses, then Terschelling is the Promised Land. I doubt it.

Hold that thought, I said.

I rummaged through my pack for a camera, the one object I’d secured in a proper waterproof sack, and mumbled something about my children needing to know who saved me. I propped an elbow on the table and framed the shot. I was losing myself in the fine, bright weather and in my new companion.

Children?

Future children.

We were all but strangers, Liesel Kraus and I, yet she settled her dark eyes on mine and searched the lens as if we’d long been intimate. Without the Minolta between us, I doubt we could have held the moment. A breeze lifted a strand of hair. It fluttered across her cheek. I waited, then clicked.

Tell me, she said. "Yesterday, you mentioned you work on the Lutine. It’s been lost forever, you know. The shoals out there form, disappear, form again. These are treacherous waters. How did you find it?"

Everyone loves a treasure hunt, but I had been working so long and hard on the Lutine platform that I’d steered our conversation in other directions. I didn’t want to hear another word about the wreck. Yet I was eager enough to talk this time, for unless I was mistaken, she had taken an interest in me.

"We expect it’s the Lutine," I said. I explained how the summer before, divers working for Lloyd’s had found a ballast pile: rocks on the seabed laid out in a line at roughly the same latitude and longitude noted in the logs of previous salvage attempts. Liesel was right, these were difficult waters. Storms covered the wreck with sand in some years and uncovered it in others, which explained why the water’s depth changed from one salvage to the next. Our divers were reasonably confident in naming the wreck, but not at all clear on how much sand we’d need to remove to get at her. We would know more when we started hauling up gold. Or not.

I had set the camera aside, but she continued watching me.

"Isn’t the world strange? My brother Anselm and I grew up dreaming about the Lutine. It’s one of the great stories of the island, you know. Papa brought us out here for summers when we were children, and we spent half our time digging up the beach, searching for treasure. There’s a mass grave for the Lutine’s sailors on the island. And now you turn up, an honest-to-god treasure hunter. Anselm’s going to love this."

As Liesel and I talked, the flood tide was creeping over the mud flats. In thirty minutes, the seabed would be covered. In two hours, the Wadden would be deep enough for ferries to haul passengers and provisions from the mainland. The café was a tiny place with a dozen tables and large terra cotta planters overflowing with geraniums and impatiens. By a spigot outside the kitchen, two Norwegians howled as they hosed caked mud off each other. At the table beside us, one of the trekkers, three beers gone, began to croak a folk tune.

What do you do? I asked. She avoided the topic the day before with as much determination as I had avoided the Lutine.

I waited. She offered nothing, and she must have realized I wouldn’t be filling in any blanks to make it easy on her. Finally, she spoke. I help my brother with a company our father started after the war. Our parents died when I was young. Anselm’s fourteen years older. He raised me. When I completed school, I joined the family business.

It was her turn to wait and watch. I talked about work, how Alec was the more natural manager and how I traveled in search of new contracts—and in fact would be leaving for Hong Kong in a few days.

Out of the blue, she interrupted me. Come to a party with me tonight.

I sat up.

"It’s Anselm’s birthday, and he’s hosting . . . an event. Some people are coming. I bought him a sweater, like I usually do. But you’re working on the Lutine! The two of you must meet, and I’ve been figuring a way. You’d make a much better present than a sweater."

The color rose in her cheeks when I asked if she wanted me to wear a bathing suit and jump from a cake.

No, it’s not like that, she said. You’d be my date. I’m afraid Anselm invited one of his friends. I’ve met this one a few times in Vienna, and I don’t much care for the man. But my brother’s persistent. He’s trying to marry me off to an über-industrialist. German, if possible. One after the next he brings them home. He says it’s time. You’d be—

Your excuse! I slapped the table, grinning. "Better still, your French excuse. I’ll do my best to uphold the honor of my nation. I thought it would be great, good fun. I accept!"

But that very instant my spirits sank as I recalled Alec’s parting instructions: five forty-five. I couldn’t not show for the first dive on the wreck. I told her, and never have I regretted two words—I can’t—more. She looked disappointed, too, as if my company that evening might have meant something to her. I can’t, I added, unless you can get me onto the dive platform at daybreak.

Liesel stood. My brother or I will motor you over. You’ll sleep at the house tonight. We’re back in business, Henri! I’ll introduce you as my French experiment. She smiled and held out a hand to close the deal.

It was a moment that has stood in sharp relief to the forgettable details of everyday life. I knew it even then. Her outstretched hand struck me like the blank signature line of a contract I hadn’t thoroughly read. I was in the habit of being more careful than this. But there she was: smart, athletic, exotic (I’d never dated a German woman), taking a chance on me. And there I was, lightheaded from beer and, I admit, feeling the onset of an adolescent crush. My goal in setting out that morning had been to reverse the normal curve of my life, if only for a few hours, by acting more and thinking less. So I agreed and shook her hand. These are my only clothes, I said.

She reached for her pack. It’s a fancier party than that, in any event. You can borrow one of my brother’s tuxedoes. He’s a bit taller, but I can hem the pants. Shall we go?

Tuxedoes.

Two cars waited in the parking lot: one a rusted Citroën, an island junker, and the other a Mercedes roadster, top down with gleaming grillwork. I watched her approach the cars, betting which was hers.

I was wrong.

four

The convertible flew down the backbone of Terschelling headed east, past fields as green as any I had seen in Ireland. The wind roared. I counted windmills and farmhouses, but not sheep. There were too many to count, thousands dotting the pastures like woolly, fair weather clouds.

So . . . what’s the family business? I yelled.

Again, hesitation.

Steel.

Ten minutes earlier, as I helped Liesel stow our packs, she’d removed her guide’s jacket with its many zippered compartments to reveal arms as long and pale as those of the marble nudes I pretended to study at the Louvre as a twelve-year-old. I tried not to stare.

I cut angles through the wind with my hands. I considered how the barbed wire framed the pastures as if they were paintings. I watched everything but Liesel because what I wanted most was to study the sweep of her neck to her bare shoulder and the hollow at her collarbone.

You’re shivering, she said. I’ll draw you a bath when we get home.

Draw me a bath? I added up what little I knew until I felt certain of my hunch and said, Kraus Steel.

She did not deny it. Her auburn hair was flying.

Do you know, I yelled over the noise, "that I used Kraus steel on the dive platform? I looked everywhere for marine-ready steel. You’re that Kraus!"

She shrugged, then smiled.

Now I could look. What an excellent coincidence it was. Liesel explained that she ran the family foundation, and I guessed— correctly—that she gave away more money each year than I would make in several lifetimes. She talked about her work, then stopped and pulled the car off onto a modest rise, little more than a mound that brought us to all of twelve or fifteen meters above sea level. On an island as flat as Terschelling, that offered a sweeping view to the east.

I wondered why we stopped until, gaping, I looked beyond her. No way! I said.

It made perfect sense.

My family’s summer home.

In the distance rose an estate built on dunes rolling down to the North Sea, as strange in that setting as the Emerald City rising over a field of poppies. The main house formed a massive gull’s wing, with a pair of two-story corridors angled east and west that met at a central, turreted tower: an arrowhead, essentially, fronted by a stone turret. I had seen this tower, an old lighthouse sitting atop a promontory formed by the letters K R A U S. It was the logo burned into every piece of steel I received while building the dive platform.

I counted seven fireplaces and, connected by a series of boardwalks to the main house, a dozen freestanding, single-story cottages cut into the dunes like satellites around a mother ship.

Löwenherz, she said.

My German was passable: Lionheart?

She nodded. My eyes followed a long stone jetty to a dock, where I saw a boat that serviced three yachts moored offshore.

Liesel removed her sunglasses and turned toward me. I want to tell you something and ask you something.

Before she began, she hit the hazard button with her fist and pointed. This is what you’re dealing with. I need to get it out in the open because I’ve been around too long not to know that my family’s wealth screws things up. Half the men I meet see Löwenherz or my apartment in Munich and run because they’ll never make as much money as I do. The other half think they’ve hit the lottery, and I kick them out because I can’t stand them getting fat on bonbons and calling the staff at two in the morning for sandwiches. And this is good German stock I’m talking about. Which sort of man are you?

It’s not a question often asked on a first date, and I didn’t walk around with a ready answer in my pocket. What kind of man was I? My father was a civil servant, an analyst for French naval intelligence; my mother, a university biologist. Our family read books, attended the symphony, and camped most August holidays in the mountains or at the beach. I owned a twelve-year-old Peugeot with torn upholstery. I owned no summer home and never knew anyone who named their home, summer or otherwise.

I told her this and said, Does poverty disqualify me?

She didn’t miss a beat. Not unless money disqualifies me.

I worked out a math problem on the palm of my hand with an imaginary pencil. I may be wrong, I said, looking up. But if half the men in your life run and the other half get bounced, you’re talking one hundred percent. This would mean there’s no man in your life. Currently.

My hopes soared.

My brother’s getting nervous I’ll die an old maid, if that’s your question. Which explains Anselm’s friend from Vienna. He comes from the family that owns Bayer Pharmaceuticals. You know, the aspirin people. Their summer home is larger than Löwenherz, and they call it a cottage. She rolled her eyes. There’s something else, she said.

I waited.

My father ran a steel mill during the war. In the late forties, factory owners all over Germany were being tried and sent to prison for using slave labor. Not Otto, because he saved people’s lives like that man Schindler. Ten witnesses came forward to vouch for him. They signed an affidavit, and he was never charged with war crimes. But he was a member of the Nazi party. Some people, some of the men I’ve met, can’t get past that. You should know now.

I knew her father’s story, more or less, the instant I learned she was a Kraus. A few years earlier, there had been a boycott in Paris of products from German companies that profited through business with the Third Reich. The action was meant to force the companies to examine their wartime dealings, publish accounts, apologize and—if warranted—compensate slave laborers. The biggest names were easy to recall: Krupp, Siemens, and the I.G. Farben subsidiaries, including Bayer, which splintered after Germany’s defeat. Kraus Steel was mentioned, which I had reason to recall when ordering beams for the dive platform.

Do you understand? she said. My father wore a swastika lapel pin.

How could I understand? My father fought in the French Resistance. I was born in 1950 and had no direct memories of the war, though I may as well have lived through it for all of the stories I’d heard about the occupation. So, no, I couldn’t understand Liesel or the German view of things much beyond this: that as a child, when I asked my father what he did during those years, I got answers that made me proud. When Liesel asked, she got news of affidavits and proofs of innocence. She had inherited a heavy burden along with that mansion in the distance.

I enjoy your company, she said. You liked me well enough yesterday, when I was just a guide. And today, in town and on the flats. You liked me, didn’t you?

This was true.

Well, then. She hitched a thumb over her shoulder, pointing to Löwenherz. Perhaps you could like me, even with that. But I want to make sure you understand. Hitler shook my father’s hand. My father held my hand as we walked on the beach or in the city. At the café, I shook your hand. She fell against the seat as if she’d pushed a boulder up a hill, fully expecting it to roll back down and crush her. "That’s it. That’s all my monsters. I’m thirty years old. I was born in 1948, three years after the war, and sometimes I feel like I’m running from my Nazi past. It isn’t fair."

It wasn’t.

I’m no German industrialist, I said.

Thank God.

Your brother won’t be pleased.

"Sure he will. You work on the Lutine. That trumps everything."

Yachts rode their moorings as the tide ran. Farther out to sea, sails leaned into the wind while under the platform, a lost ship waited to yield her secrets. The broad Terschelling sky held it all: Liesel’s burden and Liesel’s beauty, honest work for my young firm, and the memory of a war that would not let go.

I do have a question, I said.

She turned, her eyes red.

I know we’re playacting tonight. But will I have to kiss you?

five

The estate buzzed with guests and staff preparing the banquet hall and ballroom. Anselm had run a bus service from the ferry landing that afternoon, and some thirty couples would be staying the night. I nodded my hellos to several as I made my way to the beach, where, after the promised bath and a change into borrowed clothes, I walked the tidal line.

Not five minutes later, I saw a boy, seven or eight years old, running with arms spread wide, making airplane sounds. He buzzed in and out of the dunes, onto the open beach, then back again making eerrrrrm, zooming noises. When he saw me, he banked right with a long sweep toward the sea, then back to his visitor. He was flushed and sweating when he arrived, his hair matted with sand.

This could only be Anselm’s son. Liesel had run through the family I’d be meeting, and only one eight-year-old with wavy blond hair was on the roster: Friedrich Wilhelm Gustav Kraus. He’d blown through one knee of his pants and stained his otherwise white shirt purple with a juice of some sort.

The beach plums are ripe, he said.

I looked for and found a hint of Liesel in his face. "Where can

Reviews for The Tenth Witness

[joyanne-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is a very well written story with a compelling plot and intriguing characters. You've got everything needed for the perfect mystery... sunken treasure, murder, ex-Nazi's. Fast moving, action packed tale with engineer Henri Poincare and his business partner design and build an extensive platform for use in searching for sunken treasure. Henri falls in love with Liesel Kraus, whose brother supplies material for the platform. Henri eventually learns of the family's involvement with Nazi's during the war and the fun begins. A 5 star read for sure!I received a copy of this book free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

[kazevedo_53 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Knowing nothing about this author and having read no reviews, I dove in with no expectations. I was engrossed right away and finished the book the same day. The impetus for Henri Poincare to leave the engineering business he is building and eventually become an Interpol agent, is his growing moral dilemma about and research in to the family of a women with whom he is falling in love. The details about the salvaging of a treasure ship and the growth of a successful business are great, but it is the historical background about the Holocaust, and the roles that were played by the family members that drives the story. In a way, this story reminds me of a protagonist in a Dick Francis novel, a rather quiet, unassuming man faces great fear and danger and grows in ability and moral certitude. This is much more literary but with no less tension and suspense. The writing was very good and I look forward to more by this author.

[samlives2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This international mystery manages to tie a treasure ship salvage, war crimes in labor camps during WW2, negligent working conditions in developing nations, and the bonds of family together in one intriguing mystery. Henri Poincare never imagined designing a barge for work in retrieving treasure from a lost ship would lead to solving murders for Interpol and investigating the war crimes of his employers, but that's how events unfold in The Tenth Witness. Rosen manages this seemingly bizarre and absurd transition for his character seamlessly while also creating a strong and unique message about the horrors of the Holocaust, one that affects all of his characters, no matter what their place in the story.

[ronrose1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Combine searching for sunken treasure, globe trotting, murder, chasing ex-Nazi's through the shadows, Interpol, a love story, and you've got a book that can't miss being a winner. Add excellent writing and a tale that questions some of our deepest feelings and it's impossible to put down. Henri Poincare is a French engineer who, with his partner Alec, designs & builds a revolutionary platform to use in the search for sunken treasure off the coast of Europe. Henri falls for the beautiful sister, Liesel Kraus, of the owner of the German company that provided the steel for his platform. As in all relationships there is family baggage attached. The steel company's owners have roots in Germany's Nazi past. Although Liesel insists her father did his best to resist Nazi influence, history shows the company flourished under the evil regime. This is a conundrum that Henri cannot resist trying to unravel. The book is most effective when it asks us to question our own actions and beliefs as to what is right. Do most of us pay only lip service to what we known is right, while doing just the opposite? Book provided for review by Goodreads.

[maya47bob46 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

An exciting mystery that deals with moral issues. Rosen links Nazi labor camps with 1970s (and beyond) third world facilities that exploit with little attention to worker safety or well being. Profit has replaced pleasing Hitler. The protagonist, Henri Poincare, uncovers much unpleasantness while pursuing contracts for his fledging engineering firm and searching for clues to the death of his honorary Jewish uncle who survived a Nazi labor camp.This is a prequel to "All Cry Chaos" which I haven't read. This might be why I sometimes found the tangled lines of the plot difficult to follow. I did find it compelling enough, however, to read it in two days. Some will find the graphic violence disturbing and difficult as I did. Leaving these two issues aside, it is a well written book recommended for those who like this type of mystery. I should probably confess that I could never get through "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest" for many of the same reasons. I think if you enjoyed that trilogy, you will like "The Tenth Witness".

[barlow304 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a compelling mystery/thriller set in northern Europe in the 1970s. It is also the "origin story" for author Leonard Rosen's sleuth, Henri Poincare. It fills in the back story of the Interpol detective featured in Rosen's debut novel, [All Cry Chaos]. In this earlier story, Poincare is not yet working for Interpol. Instead, he is a young engineering consultant who is trying to launch his firm together with his partner Alex Chin. Poincare loves engineering because he can set his teeth into a problem and worry it until he gets a solution. When he turns this determined sort of inquiry on his new lover's family, he begins to uncover sordid truths from their Nazi past. Rosen is very effective at building atmosphere and constructs a complex but fair puzzle. In addition, he is quite good at explaining technical details that might be boring in someone else's hands. With one minor slip, his characters are believable and the family at the center of the plot come off as troubled, almost haunted.

[cfk_3 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It's 1978 and for Henri Poincare', his family and friends, Nazi atrocities are still too fresh to be considered 'history'. Even so, when he falls for the daughter of a wealthy 'former' Nazi, Otto Kraus, who's industry profited from the slave labor of Jews during WWII, he begins the relationship believing his eyes are wide open.When is Jewish 'uncle' dies, Henri begins to explore Isaac's survival of the Holocaust and unravels the murderous past and present of the deceased Kraus' descendents and colleagues, whose fortunes are built upon the backs of the modern slaves in developing nations.

[lettypearl · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

(This was an ARC)The protagonist, Henri Poincare, is a young engineer who designed the platform by which an attempt will be made to salvage an sunken frigate off the Dutch coast. While taking a brief break before the salvage operation begins, Henri takes a guided hike across the muddy flats of the Wadden Sea at low tide, during which he meets Liesel Kraus. Liesel and her brother own Kraus Steel, which was started by their deceased father, who they idolize. As Henri falls in love with Liesel and is drawn into the circle of the Kraus family and friends, he becomes suspicious about the company's beginnngs. During the course of his investigation (which brings danger to his own life), Henri learns of the company's sordid beginnings, its use of Jewish slave labor during World War II, its connection to a much loved friend of Henri's family, and its current shady business practices in third world countries. He learns these things on his own, investigating past Nazi war crimes, the whereabouts of some of those criminals, forcing himself to examine his own attitudes and conscience. The tight plotting, excellent character development, and wonderful story-telling make this one of those books that I didn't want to put down, and felt a loss when the book came to an end. Luckily, I have not yet read Mr. Rosen's first novel "All Cry Chaos" (to which this book is a prequel), which I have now purchased and will be reading very soon. I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves, mysteries, historical fiction, espionage. It is extremely well written and very exciting!

[helenoel · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I requested this book from the Library Thing Early Reviewers program because I was intrigued by the promo story involving recovery of a treasure ship of the Dutch Coast. That was only a minor part of the story, though important, and I found myself enjoying the book in spite of it taking off in rather different directions. Henri Poincare is a creative engineer, who finds himself caught up in a German family business and complex history of the business and his own family and friends in and after WWII. It started a bit slow, but builds to hold the readers interest to an exciting end. It is a prequel to the author's first novel which I plan to search out and read.

[lehack · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The Tenth Witness, an Henri Poincare mystery,, is a prequel to All Cry Chaos. The story is set in 1978. Henri, a mechanical engineer, and his partner, Alec Chin have developed an offshore platform for Lloyds of London in order to recover gold from the HMS Lutine which sank in the late 18th century. Henri meets Leisl Krauss whose family owns Krauss Steel which Henri used in building the platform. Their relationship develops, with Leisl introducing Henri to her family. One of the family business partners offers to introduce him to key people internationally in order to promote his business. In the meantime, Henri gets a message from home that his Uncle Isaac has died. Isaac isn't truly a family member, but a very close friend who survived the Holocaust. Henri begins to suspect that Otto Kruass, Leisl's father, has connections to the Nazi party, even though there is a document signed by ten witnesses that proved him innocent of war crimes. Henri begins investigating Isaac's past, resraching Nazi war crime records, which leads him to the other surviving witnesses, who appear to be dying one by one. Rosen has done extensive research into the reconstruction period in Europe after WWII, the Nazi War crimes, and international business. The story moves along at a good pace, revealing just enough information to keep the reader turning pages. I look forward to the next Henri Poincare mystery.

[rtnrlfy · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Given that this is a prequel, I wasn't quite sure what to expect, but this was a fabulous book. Digging deeply into questions of guilt by association, the aftermath of war and its corresponding guilt for all who are left behind, and how we handle serious ethical dilemmas, especially when they impact our livelihood and our relationships, and combining those themes with a solid storyline, Rosen has produced a great follow-up to "All Cry Chaos," which I loved. Poincaré's character becomes even more layered, as some of his back story is revealed. I look forward to future books with these characters.

[ricktheobald · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Leonard Rosen’s The Tenth Witness is a deftly written narrative focusing on the clashing cultures and hidden pasts of key figures from the World War II era, as well as their descendents whose continued prosperity and influence hinges on maintaining the veil of secrecy that has characterized the past 2-3 decades. The ruthless behavior and zeal that characterizes the aging members of the Krauss Steel family empire juxtaposed against the analytical, detail oriented and love blinded conduct of the story’s protagonist, Henri Poincare, make for a volatile atmosphere guaranteed to erupt at some point in time. Very well written, with characters that are vivid and readily believable, this novel focuses on contemporary times but reaches back to the late eighteenth century as well as World War II for much of the underpinning of the saga. The plot is provocative, it includes sunken ships, Nazi villains, missing treasures, corporate malfeasance and exotic canines who seem to read the mind of their malevolent master; it unwinds in a fast moving atmosphere of intrigue and deceit, and the tale is embellished with numerous side issues that enrichen the telling.This was my first Lenard Rosen novel….and it will not be my last. I welcome further adventures of Henri Poincare.

[cbl_tn · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Henri Poincaré and his business partner have taken on a project that will help them launch their engineering firm. They've been hired by Lloyd's to salvage the wreck of the Lutine near the island of Terschelling near the Dutch mainland. At the beginning of the project, Henri meets and soon falls for Liesel Kraus, whose family's steel business came to prominence during Germany's Nazi era. The death of Henri's surrogate grandfather, Isaac, a Holocaust survivor, drives Henri to look for the story behind an unusual keepsake. Henri must dig into Germany's Nazi past to find the answers he seeks, and uncomfortably close to Liesel's circle of family and friends.The book combines many of my favorite elements in a mystery – international travel, historical mystery, treasure hunt, archival research, and a little bit of romance. It has a lot in common with my favorite Grisham novel, The Firm, with a young professional trying to extricate himself from a web of corruption. At slightly under 300 pages, it doesn't suffer from the over-writing that characterizes too many recent novels. Although this is the second novel featuring Henri Poincaré, this is a prequel to the first book. Readers like me who haven't yet read the first book won't feel like they're missing important background information. Highly recommended for most mystery/crime fiction fans.This review is based on an advanced reading copy provided by the publisher through LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program.

[gwnfkt12 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The Tenth Witness is the courageous story of one man’s quest to uncover the truth about a group of Nazi’s who were pardoned after WWII by ten witnesses, all of whom are suddenly dying. Henri Poincare, the infinitely loveable main character, has known one of the witnesses his whole life, so this mission is very personal to him. However, he also happens to be dating the daughter of one of the Nazis he is investigating, wherein lies the conflict. As Poincare delves deeper into the mystery, it is impossible not to hope for his success. Rosen writes his character as irresistible as any character yet written and his painfully realistic dilemma will pull in readers from all genres. I have every expectation that this book will quickly become well-respected as mystery, romance, and historical fiction. It is brilliantly addictive.

[mamzel_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A slow building of tension leads to deep intrigue and historical mystery in this book which is a prequel to a series of mystery-adventures featuring the French engineer, Henri Poincaré. Placing the book in the 70s makes it possible to still have survivors of the Holocaust as witnesses to identify the perpetrators of the atrocities taking place in the camps. Henri designed a platform to dive on the wreck of the Lutine, believed to have lots of gold never retrieved because it is located off the coast of the Netherlands in an area of dangerous currents and tides. He meets a young woman who is part of a German steel manufacturing company and falls in love with her. As secrets emerge involving an old family friend and the German industrialists, Henri is in a precarious position.Full of danger and interesting settings, this book is a great example of action/adventure.

[ehousewright-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I really love “first in series” books, and enjoyed All Cry Chaos with its complex characters, intriguing plot and dark overtones. What could be better than a prequel that chronicles Henri Poincare’s introduction to Interpol?The Tenth Witness is hard to read—not because it isn’t well written, logical or internally consistent but because it deals with difficult subjects. Evil is there as might be expected in a book dealing with WWII history but so are other characteristics of the human race that aren’t as easy to judge, are widely prevalent, and teach Henri uncomfortable lessons. Instead of the mathematical concepts that underpin the first book, here we see how his more practical engineering background guides Henri’s approach. He throws himself into his business venture because it is now time to “act more and think less.” He loves identifying problems, prioritizing and then solving them, but he learns that there are complexities when dealing with business, history and people that make things far less “tidy” than he expects. His fundamental decency along with a willingness to think, grow and learn make him an investigator capable of working through intricate puzzles—I look forward to more of these thought-provoking books!