All Cry Chaos

The Henri Poincaré Series, Book 1

By: Leonard Rosen

Narrated by: Grover Gardner

Length: 10 hrs and 23 mins

Publisher's summary

All Cry Chaos, a debut thriller by the immensely gifted Leonard Rosen, is a masterful and gripping tale that literally reaches for the heavens.

The action begins when mathematician James Fenster is assassinated on the eve of a long-scheduled speech at a World Trade Organization meeting. The hit is as elegant as it is bizarre. Fenster’s Amsterdam hotel room is incinerated, yet the rest of the building remains intact. The murder trail leads veteran Interpol agent Henri Poincaré on a high-stakes, world-crossing quest for answers.

Together with his chain-smoking, bon vivant colleague, Serge Laurent, Poincaré pursues a long list of suspects: the Peruvian leader of the Indigenous Liberation Front, Rapture-crazed militants, a hedge-fund director, Fenster’s elusive ex-fiancée, and a graduate student in mathematics. Poincaré begins to make progress in America, but there is a prodigious hatred trained on him—some unfinished business from a terrifying former genocide case—and he is called back to Europe to face the unfathomable. Stripped down and in despair, tested like Job, he realizes the two cases might be connected—and he might be the link.

This first installment in the Henri Poincaré series marries sharp, smart mystery to deep religious themes that will keep both agnostics and believers turning pages until the shattering, revelatory end. Anyone who enjoys the work of John le Carré, Scott Turow, Dan Brown, and Stieg Larsson will relish Rosen’s storytelling and his resourceful, haunted protagonist. Others will appreciate his dazzling prose. Still others, the way he bends the thriller form in unconventional ways toward a higher cause, in the vein of Henning Mankell in The Man from Beijing. In short, All Cry Chaos promises to become a critical success that garners a broad readership throughout the nation and across the globe.

©2011 Leonard Rosen (P)2011 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

“Only the very best of writers can weave a compelling story from a maze of complicated ideas, and with this deftly crafted novel, Len Rosen has proven himself to be one of them.” (Arthur Golden, New York Times best-selling author of Memoirs of a Geisha)

Wow

Things I won’t forget. Brilliant writing that made me aware of the power of mathematical thinking. Who knew ?

not a book for the faint of heart.

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

I personally abandoned the book early in the story. Just too violent for my taste. I was looking for a John Le Carre type of story and clearly should have read critiques that might have alerted me as to its content.

Any additional comments?

Just too much violence for me.

Excellent narration. Wonderful characters!

Would you consider the audio edition of All Cry Chaos to be better than the print version?

Haven't 'read' the book, but the listen was wonderful. Beautifully narrated and I loved the main character, Poincare.

Which character – as performed by Grover Gardner – was your favorite?

Poincare

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

I listen in the car on my way to work and back home. Makes my trips so much easier - in fact, I look forward to these trips!

Excellent debut novel, but ending disappointing.

This is well-written debut by Rosen; he's a very good writer. I enjoyed the intricate characters and the personality of Henri Poincaré, purportedly the great-grandson of his famous namesake. The story is intricate, with many twists and turns. I sort of guessed where things were headed, but the ending is quite preposterous. The mathematician Fenster resembles Benoît Mandelbrot in several respects, both in terms of his topical focus and in terms of his attempts to extend fractals to a comprehensive world view. A scientific world view is not the same as religion, and the conflict between science and religion are not well-drawn.

Grover Gardner does a good job with the voices of the different characters, and I enjoyed his reading.

The denouement was rather disappointing to me, quite unbelievable in its details and philosophically unsatisfactory (and philosophy plays a large role in understanding the motives of the some of the principal actors.)

The relation between science, mathematics, and religion is not well-drawn, yet it plays a big role in undertanding the motivation and behavior of a number of the central characters, although rather incidental to Poincaré himself.

An aside on the science and math described: The reader will get a good sense of the meaning of the notion of fractals and self-similar systems. The notiion that the world is fundamentally fractal is not unprecedented; again, see the writings of Mandelbrot and, more generally, the approach called cellular automata, such as by Wolfram. Scientifically, this has not met with much success.

As an aside, to the extent that the book touches on the work of the famous mathematician whose name the protagonist bears, it is not quite right. Although Poincaré talked about "relativity," (for example, in his 1904 lecture at the St. Louis World's Fare, he clung to Newton's absolute time and the ether concepts and even rejected the implications drawn by Einstein in his famous 1905 paper about "special relativity." Indeed, Poincaré disbelieved E=mc^2. Rosen states that Einstein owed a debt to Poincaré for general relativity (published in its final form in 1916). That is simply not true. In fact, Poincaré did not accept this as the correct theory of gravity. Although incidental to the plot, I was disappointed that the author did not do his homework on these matters.

a detective's tragedy

Any additional comments?

Behind a complex plot are tragic themes. It is a sad story on many levels, too sad in my opinion for listening, easier to read where the medium is less immediate.

Not bad.

An interesting plot that introduces an Interpol Investigator trying to locate the killer of an esteemed mathematician, whose elegant discoveries raise many questions.
For a 'new' writer, this is a not bad start to a series.
The Publishers summary is a bit overstated. This is not Stieg Larsson, Henning Mankell or John Le Carre. Leave it at 'European in style' perhaps.
Grover Gardner reads well,as usual.
It considers the exploitation of people by capitalists, end of days fervour, greed, the effects of war, jusice and law, and a question. If there is an elegant design, does that imply a designer?
If you do enjoy mysteries, look at fractals and wonder and are willing to try a new author, you could well enjoy this one. I expect the stories will get better as the series progresses..

A suspense modern classic! Best buy!

A surprisingly well written suspense story incorporating modern genocide crimes, social problems, fanaticism, & terrorism.  There is a personal thread running through it all. If it had been a movie I would have been on the edge of my chair, as a listen it was a great story. I bought it on another Audible sale on the strength of other members' reviews & am glad I did as it is well worth the money. If you like stories like "Bourne Identity" & "Tinker, Tailor, Soilder, Spy..." then Inspector Poincare may appeal to you. Listen to the sample but the narrator Mr. Gardner is perfect for the character Poincare & others. I agree I wish there was more Poincare from author Leonard Rosen.

Intro. to promising new literary detective

I listened to this book several months ago and I still recall the bulk of the story line, the characters, if not their names, and the conclusion and atmosphere. That is rare for generally escapist fare, where maybe the main plot and maybe the main character are the only memorable elements.

But here the secondary and supporting characters stick out. The author allows for some real tragedy to befall the protagonist without providing a sugar and spice bow-tie recovery from the tragic events at the end. Poincare is cerebral, gritty, insightful and determined but doesn't flash superior in field action figure type skills that many thriller stories spring on a reader without semi-realism. He makes mistakes, his bosses make mistakes. Yet he steadily pushes forward even against his primary sidekick (who handles the action hero aspects) loses confidence in him and his mission as the story pushes the reader forward.

The denouement is a bit of a let down at first, but as it fully unfolds there is one last very human believable action by Poincare that is a satisfying surprise.

The main creditability weakness in the story is the globe-trotting field of investigation Poincare enjoys that is doubtful to expect from any criminal investigative bureaucracy, even an international one like Interpol which I suspect uses resources on the ground in its various participating countries.

The reader does a decent but not notable job. The range of accents characters should have, given range of locales the secondary characters inhabit, is quite narrow as delivered.

A very well crafted novel read by consumate expert

Would you consider the audio edition of All Cry Chaos to be better than the print version?

I found this story and presentation griping and it has become one of my favorite novels. I recommend All Cry Chaos to anyone with an ear for a great book.

Which scene was your favorite?

The ending was a pleasant surprise. The afterword took care of all loose ends.

Detective Story on a Theme of Job

The Inspector is torn between his standards of honorable conduct as an Interpol agent and his desire for revenge for horrific acts of torture and murder committed by those he is tracking.



The characters are believable and the plot well twisted. At times it was difficult to read about the trials of this man and the injury to the innocents around him, and I found myself carrying around a sadness that was difficult to shake. That said, the author was wise enough to let the plot veer away from Poincare's tribulations in time to keep the reader engaged to the end, when the Inspector gets his man and begins to heal.