In "The Name of Death" Cavalcanti masterfully crafted an account that will cause you to have a slight moral crisis. So much so I have to preface this by stating I in no way shape or form condone murder. This story pieces together the personal story of a Brazilian professional hit-man with great care not to justify actions but to paint a picture to show how someone could not only fall into and continue this type of 'work' and in his later years still insist there are a devout man and a good provider for his family. 

It doesn't go to give excuses for behavior, but it is clear from these accounts, that Sanatana was a young man who suffered manipulation and subjected to experiences that would be traumatic to someone of any age. In the shadow of that, his abuser is at least depicted as being someone of even fewer morals--though I'm sure given the brutality around them he carried his own damage-- who in the height of these formative events presented a developing mind pleading for a salve with what could be seen as righteous justification. To a young person who claims and for what its worth seemed initially kind hearted and ambitious as any youth, he promise that they could provide, that they're only doing something that someone else would be doing, that it wasn't a matter of not doing it would save a life, to 'if you don't do it, they'll kill me or hurt the family', it's easy to see where the sliding could start. Stir in a moral balancing of continual reassurance that god will forgive all sins if you make sure to keep to a regiment of absolution chants, stir in a years of emotional control and increased exposure to horrific violence all around you, and it becomes not so unimaginable. 

This is a story that will make your heart ache. It will make you angry. above all, it will make you wish that this were not only fiction, but that it were far off history instead of just one more step of ongoing brutality that gets too soon swept under the rug.