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)

One of my two best books I have read (listened).

What did you love best about All Cry Chaos?

The fullness and depth of the characters, each were truly unique, not just shades of the main character.

What did you like best about this story?

So real, the decisions we all have to make and the consequences we must pay whether good or bad. Doing what we believe is right and knowing the price is too high, and living with it.

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

Main character

Any additional comments?

This book and characters are fictional, I love these kind of books. Purely entertaining. This was so much more!!! I cried I couldn't believe it. I never cry, but it was not for what happened it was for the choice he had to make. Magically and thunderously it was real. NEVER has happened before. Not real sure I want it to happen again. Yeah I do.
Whenever I rate a book I usually rate it high than most because it takes courage to write and I respect the effort. Then once in a blue moon you listen or read one like this, how do you rate it?

An interesting start

It has been awhile since I listened. I don't remember the narrator so had to listen to the sample to refresh my memory.
It was a good story that I wanted to listen to until the very end. I guessed some of the twists but didn't mind at all. I was wrong about others and pleasantly surprised. I liked the main character, in all of his complexities, and I look forward to hearing more of his stories. To say more would be a spoiler.

Pretty good!

I always like starting a new series and getting to know new characters. I figured out everything pretty much halfway through and then had to listen through the 2nd half to determine I was correct. I was a bit disappointed that it was predictable and some things tied up so neatly. I was also disappointed about ***SPOILER ALERT*** things which happened with Poincare's family. I thought the mystery would have been fine without that distraction.

Loved by a HS Math teacher.

By my usual standards, this is an intricate and affecting plot. I began because of Grover Gardner. I stayed because of Poincaré, both the genius and the great grandson. I hope you like it. I will reread it ASA I have let it settle and sink in.

Fizzled

End fell apart. Contrived? Uh-huh. Pity since the puzzle was intriguing, but I'm guessing that Rosen didn't have a solution so he kind of crammed one together. The trip to the end though is exciting and the characters are compelling. Can't recommend it though.

Boring

Listened to 11 chapters and can’t get into it. Too bored to try any longer.

Poor Performance

I'm afraid that I couldn't stand the narrator's voice on this recording, and I gave up on the whole book after just a couple of chapters. He was completely monotone. Add to that the fact that this is another of those books filled with macho, cynical secret agents who seem to think that putting down other people is funny, and for me, this is a complete dud.