Among the hodge-podge of Peruvian government officials, there is a man named Constantino Zegarra. He doesn’t fit anywhere and looks down on his colleagues because he has never succumbed to an act of corruption and, every time he has had the opportunity to do so, he has made an effort to impede it. Over his two decades as a government official he has cultivated purity - the fuel for his soul. Now forty, this solitary soldier is a married man and father to a teenage girl who never stops reading and thinks her father is wrong. He doesn’t care what his wife and daughter think. Constantino has taken his principles to the extreme in order to prove to himself that he isnot like his father, a man who ended his days in poverty because of corruption. One morning, Constantino leaves his house and a stray bullet goes through his throat. He doesn’t die but becomes mute. After his recovery, the only thing of which he is certain is that someone from his office tried to kill him.