Five top thrillers in which women get revenge or justice

Bonnie Kistler is a former Philadelphia attorney and the author of House on Fire and The Cage. She graduated from Bryn Mawr College, magna cum laude, with Honors in English literature, and she received her law degree from the University of the Pennsylvania Law School, where she was a moot court champion and legal writing instructor.

She spent her law career in private practice with major law firms. Peer-rated as Distinguished for both legal ability and ethical standards, she successfully tried cases in federal and state courts across the country.

She and her husband now live in Florida and the mountains of western North Carolina.

Kistler's new novel is Her, Too.

[Q&A with Bonnie Kistler; The Page 69 Test: The Cage; The Page 69 Test: Her, Too]

At CrimeReads she tagged five thrillers in which women get revenge or justice, including [SPOILER ALERT]:

In The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson, Lisbeth Salander is placed into the guardianship of Nils Bjurman, a corrupt sadist who repeatedly rapes her. She secretly videotapes one of his attacks, then returns to his apartment to taser him, tie him up, and sodomize him with one of his sex toys—a literal rape for a rape. She threatens him with release of the videotape if he doesn’t end the guardianship. Finally, she tattoos the words “I AM A RAPIST” on his chest. Lisbeth not only achieves her own personal revenge, she also gains a measure of justice by assuring that no other woman will suffer at his hands.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo made Amy S. Foster's list of five books featuring women who shoot first and ask questions later, E(ugene). C. Myers's top five list of books featuring heroic hackers, Fanny Blake's top five books about revenge, Kat Rosenfield's list of the eight most famous body parts in fiction, Rebecca Jane Stokes's top ten list of books about women in peril…who fought back, Maureen Corrigan's top five list of crime & mystery novels of 2008, Camilla Läckberg's top ten list of Swedish crime novels, and is one of Lynda Bellingham's six best books. The Millennium Trilogy is one of Ken Follett's five best trilogies, and Lisbeth Salander is among James Swallow's five fictional hackers who use their skills for good, Panayiota Kuvetakis's top ten fictional female friends we'd like to have as anything close to real-life friends and Anne Holt's top ten female detectives.

--Marshal Zeringue