Life has gotten hard for thirteen-year-old Leo Lomax. His parents are gone, given up for dead after their plane crashes in Antarctica. He and his brother, Hollis, are sent to live with their sinister uncle Crane, a dealer of rare (and possibly smuggled) antiques. Here in Crane's bleak Brooklyn warehouse, Leo receives a mysterious package his father put together long ago-a package that introduces him to a power he never knew he had.

Leo is a sound bender. Everything he touches speaks to him from the past, whispers its secrets, pulls him relentlessly into its world. Stumbling upon a mysterious and haunting object in Crane's warehouse, he is drawn into a vortex of adventure that has everything to do with his destiny.

From the depths of industrial Brooklyn to the wilds of the Pacific tropics, Leo Lomax is set on a journey of great consequence and risk. And it's only his newfound power that can provide answers to the life-and-death questions Leo is forced to ask.