In 1939, with the terrifying certainty of a Nazi invasion mere weeks away, the Polish government authorized the immediate evacuation of its priceless national treasures, including, most symbolically, the 14th-century coronation sword known as Szcerbiec. Spurred breathlessly along a convoluted path across Europe to England by the galloping Nazi onslaught, the treasures finally were shipped to Canada for what was expected safekeeping and eventual repatriation to Poland. It was only upon their arrival in Canada, however, that the strange odyssey of Poland’s national treasures truly began.

This complicated repatriation is the subject of history teacher Gordon Swoger’s first book, The Strange Odyssey of Poland’s National Treasures. For the two curators charged with the daunting task of shepherding the treasures to safety, it is a story of extraordinary private heroism, loyalty, deception, heartbreak, and betrayal. For a Cold War-era Canadian government, it became both a complicated game of diplomatic cat-and-mouse with the “popularly elected” communist government in Warsaw, and a protracted confrontation with a rebellious “anti-Warsaw” premier in Quebec.

It’s a potentially compelling story.Unfortunately, Swoger is not successful in reproducing an eyewitness-to-history immediacy and narrative urgency. He does a credible job organizing and laying out the facts, but the prose rarely rises above the colourless tones of the accountant’s ledger. Having drawn exclusively upon archival sources and unable to draw fresh or inspired insights from his research, he seems content to let the facts speak for themselves. A regrettable decision, as the facts are the least compelling aspects of the story. (Too frequent and overly lengthy reproduction of source material – most especially newspaper articles – is not illuminating and often annoying.)

The book fulfills its obligation as an adequate history of a neglected episode in Canadian Cold War politics. As drama, however, the story remains to be told.