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.

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 pain into a story of power.

In this intimate, shocking and rigorous investigation, award-winning journalist Elizabeth Flock examines the lives of three 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. In luminous prose, Flock asks searching questions about cultures in which violence seems like the only means of survival, where deeply ingrained ideas about masculinity have helped breed the violence that women face.

Can women's acts of vengeance help to create lasting change in misogynistic and paternalistic systems, or will they ultimately hurt their cause? The novelistic accounts of these three women offer profound insights into the quest for understanding what a society in which women have real power might look like.