H?eg built his bestselling mystery, Smilla's Sense of Snow, around the science of ice. In this labyrinthine, intellectual thriller, H?eg focuses on the nature of sound, and in particular the music of Bach. In a near future where an earthquake and resulting flood have submerged a portion of the city of Copenhagen, Kasper Krone, a world-famous clown and passionate Bach fan, is about to be deported for not paying his taxes. But an official in a secret government agency known as Department H offers to make the charges disappear if Krone will help them locate a young girl, KlaraMaria, who was once his student and shares his peculiar psychic abilities. The blend of science, erudition and slow revelations could only have been written by H?eg, and will appeal to his many fans and other readers with a taste for the literary offbeat.(Nov.)

Drowning in gambling debt and wanted for tax evasion, Krone is drafted into the service of a mysterious order of nuns who FDromlse him reprieve in return for his help safeguarding a group of children with mystical abilities--abilities that Krone alsp shares When one of the children goes missing, Krone sets off to find the young girt an{her back, making a shocking series of discoveries along the way. The Quiet Gft exuberant philosophical thriller that is "every bit as adventuresome and ambitious as Smilla's Sense of Snow, even more so" (The Plain Dealer).