Kit Lamb, as a troubled teenager, has been drawn into a Charismatic Christian church, where he feels "saved" not only by his new religion but by his fatherly pastor, Ezra. Now, at twenty-one, he travels to Guatemala to learn Spanish and fit himself for life as a missionary. In 1983, Guatemala is ruled by born-again, bible-believing dictator, Efrain Rios Montt, a real historical figure admired by Ronald Reagan and many U.S. evangelicals but condemned by human rights organizations as a genocidal tyrant. Kit meets and is drawn to Colleen-the first link in his de-conversion. Critical of his religious beliefs, which include support for the regime, Colleen reluctantly helps Kit exchange his dollars and find his way to his school in Antigua. Kit begins to notice that the government's treatment of the impoverished Indians is not as benign as it is purported to be. Hearing one of Rios Montt's famous Sunday sermons, in which the dictator vows to crush the opposition insurgency, branding it as communist and satanic, Kit finds Rios Montt ruthless and intimidating. The cynical insinuations of a CIA operative at his school and the mysterious mission that Colleen seems to be pursuing lead Kit to the Pacific Coast where he falls victim to "la violencia" perpetrated by Rios Montt's theocratic dictatorship. In the end, Kit must decide whether to hold on to the comfort of his fundamentalism or accept the truth of his own experience."