Why do men commit horrific deeds on behalf of a dictator and what do they hope to receive in return? For the authors, the answer to the ‘banality of evil’ (Arendt, 1963) lies in the Weberian pressures inherent in rigid bureaucracy. Professional insecurities drive career ‘dead-enders’ to force their way up the ladder by one of two routes: taking on distasteful assignments in units tasked with violent repression or participating in coup conspiracies. The choice between complicity and rebellion turns on the regime’s repressive needs. Underachievers rebel when advancement options are unavailable; overachievers rebel when the regime systematically favors their bloodier peers. The authors leverage fine-grained data on thousands of Argentine army officers who served under the dictatorships of the mid-twentieth century. The data collection deserves real admiration. Utilizing archival records and clever biographical proxies let them reconstruct each officer’s background, performance, and career choices. However, I was less persuaded that the findings travel to the comparative cases (Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and Gambia in the 1990s), where similarly nuanced data were not leveraged or were unavailable. The book also left questions unanswered about other downstream effects of these career dynamics. What does a security apparatus stocked with underperformers mean for the civilians under their gaze? The abrupt close may be deliberate, given that a substantial literature already engages with these questions, but it leaves the feeling of a cliffhanger. However, these reservations certainly do not undo the major contributions of this book. Scholars of civil-military relations and autocratic politics should find this to be a welcome addition to their bookshelf.