Love in Four Dots is based on coded love letters rich with political intrigue hidden in an 1844 edition of Don Quixote. Two lovers, Sofia and Federico, traded the book back and forth between the military prison and the city of Popayán, Colombia during the One Thousand Days War (1899-1902). It would be their only means of communication for the better half of a year.

The novel, while a work of fiction, serves also as a micro-history of this horrendous conflict and its impact on the protagonists, their families and the Colombian people as a whole during this tragic period in the nation's history. Amidst the war, Sofía and Federico developed a means of secret communication: leaving penciled dots between the lines to encode both love notes and strategic plans. Through these letters and the backdrop of history, the author travels in his imagination, filling the voids in the lives of Sofía and Federico, guiding the reader to an unexpected climax that reveals the ties between the characters and the various elements of the plot.