Literary rating: ★★★★
Kick-butt quotient: ☆☆
When you think of drugs, terrorism and South America, Colombia probably comes first to mind, thanks to Pablo Escobar and his cartel pals. However, it’s far from the only country in the region with a troubled history. Peru has had its fair share of strife: it produces virtually as much cocaine, and the Marxist guerillas of the Shining Path movement fought a long, bloody war against the government through the eighties. It’s during this time that the novel begins. Young girl Nina has her father killed by soldiers hunting the guerillas in her rural village, and her brother Miguel vanishes to join the Shining Path.
More than two decades later, Nina has grown up to become a cop in Lima, with the dirty war against the Shining Path apparently over – the terrorists have now, effectively, merged with the drug traffickers. She encounters Malqui, the former village priest who spent eight years in prison for protesting the murder of Nina’s father, and mentions knowing someone who had recently met Miguel. However, before she can get any more information, Malqui is picked up by the authorities and vanishes into the dark network of secret prisons. For it seems the dirty war is not as over as is publicly stated. To rescue Malqui – and perhaps be reunited with her long-lost brother – Nina is going to have to get her own hands dirty as well.
I must confess, I confused the title with “sicario,” the drug cartel term for hit-man. Between that and the cover, I was expecting something… different. Turns out, sendero is Spanish for “path” – and those who support the guerillas. Quite whether this includes the heroine is an interesting point. After the death of her father, it seems odd for her to end up as part of the government authorities, yet she becomes part of the “resistance” as she seeks to locate and free Malqui. Though by the end of the book, it’s clear that the remnants of the Shining Path are no more the solution either, with their morality little if any less problematic. The entire novel could be printed in various shades of grey: even Nina is prepared to do bad things for what she perceives as a good end.
As such, it’s a very thought-provoking read, and opened my eyes to the history of a country about which I had never known much previously, and its social and political struggles. If there’s a weakness, it’s probably the way in which Nina ends up taking a seat in the second half, with the story’s focus shifting to Miguel and his colleagues in the Shining Path [though among them, Comrade Inez does partly fill in for the lack of Nina]. It’s a shame, for Nina is an excellent heroine: one who never forgets either where she came from, or where she wants to be, and is willing to risk everything for others, in a highly altruistic manner. Hopefully, the second book is all Nina, all the time.
Author: Max Tomlinson
Publisher: Sendero Press, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
Book 1 of 2 in the Sendero series.