Nicholas Shakespeare is a versatile English writer who spent much of his childhood in South America and the Far East due to his father’s role as a diplomat. This text draws from Peruvian political history about Abimael Guzman (named Ezequiel here), the 1980s to 90s revolutionary leader of a Marxist movement, Shining Path.
The author softens disturbing accounts of violent repression and brutality by including a love triangle which, though a little contrived, makes the sequence of events real and decidedly human. This also allows Shakespeare to explore, to a degree, the life and emotions of the key character, a well-educated police officer Colonel Rejas, whose determined pursuit takes twelve years before Ezequiel’s eventual capture.
Despite an awkward structural framework - yet satisfyingly circular - and perhaps some lost opportunities to develop increased tension, this novel stimulated a lively discussion and some interest in reading Shakespeare’s other works.
Barbara Rodgers