レビュー要約

• 数学的な発想を単なる装飾にせず、国際犯罪小説の構造に組み込んでいる点が読まれている。人物の過去や倫理的葛藤を重ねることで、謎解きよりも重層的な読後感を残す。

レビュー

• pretty good

  Almost dan brown-like in quality research which gives credibility even if some of it seems to stretch just to include a gee wiz item the author loves. I'd of Rosen were he to write more poincaire. As it is two is far from sufficient

• You take from this book what you bring to this book...

  "Sunlight bursting through clouds over that section of the Herengracht gave the famously flat city a towering, vertical dimension." There is something about this book that defies description. It is a masterpiece of time, place, and character but it also manages to make comprehensible the mathematical geometry of fractals by demonstrating their existence in nearly everything we see around us. Maybe even to the point of their application to models of human behavior? In this book, which could have been unbearably arcane, mathematics forms the subtle background in a beautifully crafted mystery. And what a delightful conceit to make our veteran Interpol agent, Henri Poincaré, the great-grandson of one of the greatest mathematicians of the 19th Century. Also named Henri Poincaré, this polymath of epic reputation introduced the modern principle of relativity upon which Einstein based his later work. The book opens with Poincaré visiting Stipo Banovic, a war criminal from the former Yugoslavia who is accused of vast atrocities that included the murder of Muslim men and boys. Poincaré was instrumental in apprehending Banovic and has now come to see him one last time before moving on to other duties. The dynamic between these two men feeds one of the main story lines in "All Cry Chaos" and it is a painful, horrible journey. The other main story line involves the murder in Amsterdam of James Fenster, a young Harvard mathematician whose work on fractals surfaces again and again to form the weave for the story. He was in Amsterdam to deliver a paper to the World Trade Organization when his room was surgically removed from the Ambassade Hotel by a bomb. Enter a whole cast of characters from Interpol, Amsterdam police, and various medical examiner offices who make this book fascinating, if not a little confusing if you can't remember names. A piece of advice right off the bat: learn your characters who have "L" names. Ludovici, Laval, Laurent. They are all meaningful. And trust the author - there are no characters here who are extraneous. The most minor characters are beautifully, vividly drawn (like Peter Roy's mother-in-law). In fact, Rosen avoids many of the pitfalls of first-novel writers who fall in love with too many storylines and characters and can't winnow them out. This is a dense book but there is no such problem here. What I appreciated most about this book was Rosen's ability to pose ethical questions and discuss models of behavior while leaving most of the resolutions for the readers to answer. Truly, you take away from this book what you bring to this book.

• Far from heavens

  I haven't found in the book the promised pleasures and thrills. None of the threads keeps its promise: the mathematics is superficial, the social is banal, the mystic is not mystic, the detective story is not credible. Moreover, the personal tragedy of the hero seems artificially inserted - it made me feel awkward. And even the hero, an interesting and captivating caracter, looses his qualities at the end of the book. No passion, no spark - we are far from the "gripping tale that literally reaches for the heavens", as the advertising promises. The intentions might have been different, the book does not support them.

• It's The Tension Between Order and Disorder That Matters

  Leonard Rosen has given us the beginning of a series of exquisite mysteries featuring Henri Poincare. This is like no other mystery that you have read. It is intelligent, precise, adventurous, personal, with world wide implications. James Fenster, a Harvard mathemetician, believes that 'the broken world we live in could be mended by the application of some universal mathematical formula.' This is an area where few of us have gone before, and by the end of this novel we wonder if , indeed, he is not correct. Something happens to James and much of the entire storyline revolves around this incident. Enter Henri Poincare, a senior agent in Interpol. He is given carte blanche to investigate this mystery, and it takes him to all corners of the world. It is obvious that Leonard Rosen knows of what he speaks, how could anyone describe the streets and 'T' stations of Boston in such fine detail, otherwise? And, it turns out that Mr Rosen has taught at Harvard. Henri's family is most important to him, his wife who is an artist, his son Etienee and his wife and their children, are so dear to Henri. Their lives are threatened in this novel, and Henri is stressed to the max. He has a heart condition, his physical and mental health are on the line. Henri has two trusted colleagues, and they work hand in hand in solving this thriller. Part of Henri Poincare's investiigation delves into a very intricate mathematical formula that may change the face of the world. Henri through his superb intellect brings us with him as he attempts to understand the formula and how it was developed. The base of this formula can help Henri in solving this case. In the process we meet fascinating financial, political, and fanatical theorists. This is an area that was untapped for me, and opened a new area of discovery. Henri Poincare is the type of character that I am immediately drawn to. He is very skilled at his job and part of that is understanding the process of interviewing and investigation. Henro Poincare's series will be one I will follow with anticipation. Highly Recommended. prisrob 11-28-11 Academic Writer's Handbook (3rd Edition)

• All Thumbs Up!

  I don't recall ever having written a book review on Amazon before but I really was excited to recommend this book. It sounds like such a cliché, but curling up with my Kindle on "All Cry Chaos" was all I felt like doing from the moment I started reading it. Like some other reviewers of this book, I am not particularly drawn to crime and suspense novels, but in this case the genre itself seems beside the point. This is such an intelligent book and the writing is superbly literate, while remaining accessible. It's precise, but never mired down in the kinds of details that can become tedious and make reading less fun. The plot is so original and the events that unfold, while enjoyably -- at times, horrifyingly -- surprising, are never implausible. Above all, as another reviewer said, there is much love in this book. The characters are true -- they're human beings driven by complex, often chaotic, emotions and motivations. The protagonist Henri Poincaré is a man running on love, anger, compassion, guilt, anguish and a powerful drive to bring about a just outcome. He's exceptionally capable, but is also a person with whom, as other reviewers suggested, we can all identify. When I had finished reading "All Cry Chaos" (which I did after a couple of days of sleep-deprivation), I felt the kind of loss I sometimes feel having to leave a book that has really engaged me. What happens next to these people, especially Poincaré and his family? What is the past that has brought them to this point in their lives together? I want to ..."sequels", "prequels", new stories with similarly compelling characters; so, I certainly look forward to Mr. Rosen's future novels. And, in the meantime, I find myself noticing fractals everywhere....

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