All Cry Chaos-Leonard Rosen

All Cry Chaos
Leonard Rosen
Permanent Press, Sep 1 2011, $29.00
ISBN: 9781579622220

Thirty years old American mathematician James Fenster is in Amsterdam to give a talk on his mathematical economics formula to at the World Trade Organization conference. However, instead of the speech, he dies in a terrorist explosion at his hotel; the killer used a smart bomb military-grade rocket fuel.

Although his health is poor and he grieves the deaths of his loved ones at the hands of a vicious Serbian war criminal, Interpol agent Henri Poincare leads the investigation. He starts with those close to Fenster like the victim’s former fiancée and his grad assistant; as both are missing. However, the inquiry leads away from the females to a militant Christian Rapture group, but Poincare cannot rule out others interested in the late professor’s models.

This super cerebral police procedural is a terrific whodunit with a mathematical formula as the key to the homicide. The story line focuses on chaos theory as Poincare quickly learns while dealing with the mathematician’s fractured personal life, religious fanatics and rival economists, and his own chaotic brain. Readers who enjoy something different in their puzzlers will appreciate the aptly titled All Cry Chaos.

Harriet Klausner