With his cool intelligence, James Gale is an ideal choice to read Hoeg's latest intellectual thriller. Like Smilla's Sense of Snow
, Hoeg has created a Fellini-like world of bizarre and dreamlike landscapes and events. Gale wisely underplays just enough to make listeners eager to find out more. In a flooded part of Copenhagen, Kasper Krone—a famous clown, psychic and passionate lover of the music of Bach—has run afoul of the tax authorities and faces deportation. But a bureaucrat from the Kafkaesque “Department H” promises to make the charges disappear if Krone will help them locate a young girl who was once Krone's pupil, now being looked after by a society of nuns. Gale guides the characters through a tangled tale of music and mystery without missing a beat or overstating a point. Gale makes Krone a wonderful mixture of motives and passions, and his villainous bureaucrat reeks with the banality of evil. Simultaneous release with the FSG hardcover (Reviews, Sept. 3). (Nov.)
