Almost 70,000 people died in the war between the terrorist movement "Shining Path" and the state of Peru in the 1980s and 1990s. Responsible for more than half of the victims during that time, the "Path" was the deadliest guerrilla organization in the history of the American continent. Abimael Guzmán, the man who guided all this violence and considered himself the "fourth sword" of international communism after Lenin, Stalin, and Mao, did not carry weapons. He had no support from foreign governments. He didn't even go to the battlefield. However, for twelve whole years, behind a desk, armed with an inflexible ideology, he tried to control an entire country.

His story is a chilling example of the destructive power of ideas. How did Guzmán become an object of idolatry capable of inspiring kamikaze missions among his followers? Who were his soldiers? How did they experience love and hate among themselves? A narrative based on the testimonies of the protagonists of the "Path," it has not only the value of a journalistic document but (just like Truman Capote's "In Cold Blood") can also be read as a shocking novel: it is an immersion into the mind of a butcher, a portrait of Evil.