THE STOLEN ONES Stevens and Windermere, Book 4

Edoardo Ballerini’s performance of this thriller is like watching a tightrope walker working without a net. You can see that the balance is perfect, and yet you can’t tell why it works. Assured and quiet, Ballerini rolls out the story, simply paying attention to the meaning and diction of every word, the pacing of every sentence. Young women from Eastern Europe, promised "modeling" jobs in America, are betrayed, then packed in containers like animals and delivered to really nasty sex slavers. One girl escapes, but, as authorities race against time to save more, she won’t cooperate because the traffickers still have her little sister. The higher the tension on the page, the more effective Ballerini’s no-drama delivery becomes. And he does a killer Romanian accent. B.G. © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine [Published: AUGUST 2015]