A scalpel sharp political satire from the Orange Prize winning writer of We Need to Talk about Kevin. Edgar Kellogg has always yearned to be popular. Leaving his lucrative career as a lawyer for the sexier world of journalism he's thrilled to be offered the post of foreign correspondent in a Portuguese backwater with a home-grown terrorist movement. Barrington Saddler the disappeared larger-than-life reporter he's been sent to replace is exactly the outsize character Edgar longs to emulate. ' The Daring Soldiers of Barba' have been blowing up the rest of the world for years in order to win independence for Barba a province so dismal backward & windblown that you couldn't give the rat hole away. So why with Barrington vanished do the terrorist incidents suddenly dry up?