The Prosperous Thief

Goldsmith's gripping Holocaust epic begins with two German children: Heinrik Heck, born poor in 1910, and Alice Lewin, who is six when Kristallnacht shatters her elegant secular Jewish family. As an army deserter in 1945, Heinrick comes across Martin, a typhoid-stricken concentration camp survivor, and makes a desperate choice. "There's his own future to consider, he tells himself as he squats down and lays his hands one each side of Martin's head. He twists." Martin is Alice's father; Heinrik, having killed Martin, takes part of Martin's identity and reinvents himself as Henry Lewin, a Jew, and starts a new life in Australia. Alice, saved by the Kindertransport, lands in California, marries a non-Jew and erases the un-American lilt in her voice. But her son, Raphe, is obsessed with the Jewish grandfather with whom he shares a passion for volcanoes. His urging sends Alice to Australia, where she confronts Henry Lewin. Henry dies; Alice dies. Raphe, guardian of the truth, goes to Australia with such rage inside him, it seems he might murder Henry's daughter. Despite a melodramatic ending on the rim of a volcano and a few lapses in craft and language ("loathe" for "loath"), Australian Goldsmith's fifth novel has undeniable power. (Nov.)