The Furies

In The Furies, award-winning journalist Elizabeth Flock examines the lives of three unforgettable women who chose to use lethal force to gain power, safety, and freedom when the institutions meant to protect them - government, police, courts - utterly failed to do so. Brittany Smith, a young woman from Stevenson, Alabama, killed a man she said raped her in her own home, but was denied the protection of a self-defense argument; Angoori Dahariya led a gang in Uttar Pradesh, India, dedicated to avenging victims of domestic abuse; and Cicek Mustafa Zibo fought in a thousands-strong all-female militia that battled ISIS in Syria. Each woman has been criticised for their actions by those who believe that violence is never the answer; yet each has transmuted a story of disempowerment into a story of resistance.

In luminous prose, Elizabeth Flock asks searching questions about cultures in which violence seems like the only means of survival, when deeply ingrained ideas about masculinity and women have helped breed the violence that women face. The novelistic accounts of these three women offer profound insights into the quest for understanding whether women's acts of vengeance ultimately help or hurt them.