Victims: A Pound of Flesh

Joan McGrath is a Toronto Board of Education library consultant.

What if... what if a vigilante became unable to endure the injustice of self-confessed multiple murderers, rapists, child molesters, escaping punishment through the clever manipulations of criminal law practice? What if such a person decided to assume the self-imposed role of public executioner, to murder the murderer, using the identical method he had employed against his victim? A series of mysterious crimes has the police utterly baffled. Plainly the killer is working to some inexplicable plan. Each corpse bears a distinguishing mark; the killer wants to be recognized as the agent of death. The police begin to wait in dread for the appearance of yet another mutilated body with a numbered tag attached. The tables are turned with a vengeance, as men who have persecuted those weaker than themselves learn what it is to be potential victims. “Women, inured from puberty to the threat of attack, watched quietly as their men came to know the full meaning of fear.” A disquieting, thought-provoking shocker, which awakens many an echo of all-too-true headline crimes of the recent past.