You Know Her

Two women in a small Virginia town deal with misogynistic men differently in Meagan Jennett's vicious and complicated thriller, You Know Her. One, a cop, tries to put them behind bars whenever possible; the other fixes the world by killing them. Bartender Sophie Braam warns a guy she'll kill him if he doesn't stop trying to grope her. It's not her fault he doesn't take her seriously. Neither does the next guy, who meets the same fate as the first. Sophie becomes hellbent on ridding the world of men who don't take no for an answer.

Fed up with a lack of advancement and with male colleagues calling her "sweetheart" at her former place of work, Officer Nora Martin is newly arrived in the Virginia town on the promise of making detective as soon her mentor, a detective named Murph, retires. She quickly gains a friend in Sophie. But a different police station and new community don't change the fact that Nora's a woman. Long work hours followed by unpaid detective training wear her down. Her situation might improve if she can help solve a string of local murders. Though Murph disagrees, Nora thinks the killings are connected and are being committed by a woman, given that the victims are male and have their tongues cut out. After all, both Nora and Sophie can understand telling men to shut up.

Early in Jennett's dark and brilliant first novel, an expletive-laden rant from one character's perspective makes a frighteningly convincing case for murdering men. You Know Her should make for lively discussions among readers of all genders. --Paul Dinh-McCrillis, freelance reviewer

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