THE NEW REPUBLIC

Journalist wannabe Edgar Kellogg’s first assignment finds him in a backwater breakaway region of Portugal, with a group of jaded foreign correspondents who are feeling abandoned by their newspapers and eagerly awaiting the next act of terrorism. The protagonist is no sweetheart himself, and Ballerini’s soft-spoken delivery conveys Kellogg’s anxiety, distrust, and arrogance, which mark the core of this novel. Ballerini’s character voices for the gang of unlikable journalists are colorful and imaginative, and in their often acid dialogue he transitions effortlessly. This cynical take on foreign correspondence will have listeners thinking about how journalists influence the way the news is reported. And this story, though an extreme example, is made uncomfortably realistic with Ballerini’s deft narration. F.T. © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine [Published: MARCH 2012]