In 1933, during one of the most terrifying periods in history, with the world in the mire of the Great Depression and sleepwalking towards World War II, John, an investigative journalist from The Washington Post, witnesses the "blessed assassination" of the president of Peru.
In the midst of a civil war, international conflicts, hounded by the police and even by his own American embassy, and saving the woman he loves, John risks his life, facing powerful enemies, to uncover a sinister plot with global ramifications that precedes the president's assassination.
Following considerable research about a country he loves, Robert Gammon's novel reveals historical events leading up to the president's assassination, across the street from where Robert lived in Lima.
If you enjoyed Ken Follet's Century Trilogy or Nobel Prize winner Mario Vargas Llosa's Fierce Times or Feast of the Goat, you'll enjoy Blessed Assassination. The novel, based on true events, transports readers to a different world, to another era. The shocking events of the 1930s may seem distant, but today we are once again experiencing similar crises, autocracies, and populism.
After a boozy night, John is woken up the following morning by his assistant, Pedro, who breaks the news that President Sánchez-Cerro, an army strong-man, has been shot. The president's life was saved by his friend and adjutant, Lieutenant Colonel Gonzalo Vargas, Pedro's father. And the young would-be assassin turns out to be Pedro's cousin, who is sentenced to death.
Before being employed by The Washington Post, John first arrived in Peru when his father's patron, Mr James Randall III, an important Boston businessman, enticed him to join an economic mission advising the Peruvian government. But Randall expected John to help him with his murky business plans, corrupting Peruvian officials.
John has a passionate affair with Yolanda, a bright Peruvian lawyer from a humble family toiling on Peru's largest sugar cane plantation. Randall demands that John spies on the sugar cane plantation and help him buy it at a distressed low price. John refuses and quarrels violently with Randall, who swears revenge.
John discovers a mysterious report from Randall, scheming to become USA Vice President and then replace the President by foul means. Randall intends allocating business to USA multinational companies backing him, and control Latin American governments. Also, Randall would avoid war by colluding with totalitarians like Hitler, Mussolini and even Imperial Japan, curbing the Russian Communist menace to international business.
Army strong-man Sánchez-Cerro, supported by local and foreign businessmen, had won presidential elections defeating Haya, Latin America's most influential radical politician – his ideas feared by conservative politicians and businessmen alike. But Haya accused him of electoral fraud. Sánchez-Cerro's regime soon turns authoritarian, banning democratic opposition led by Haya's party. Sánchez-Cerro accuses Haya of attempting to assassinate him and imprisons Haya in horrendous conditions.
Fearing for his life, Haya's supporters' revolt, after overrunning an army barracks where John and Pedro save a badly injured Gonzalo. John, Pedro and Gonzalo, together with Yolanda, find refuge in a friend's house. Yolanda's brother is a rebel leader and he and Pedro are arrested with hundreds of rebels and face being lined up in front of a firing squad when the army puts down the rebellion after days of bloody fighting. Peru is in the grips of civil war.
Now, John makes dead enemies not only of Randall but also the Sánchez-Cerro regime, for revealing to a horrified world public opinion in The Washington Post the regime's massacre of civilians.
Gonzalo Vargas is torn between his horror at the abominable massacre by the army in Trujillo and his loyalty to Sánchez-Cerro, his long-time friend and fellow career officer.
