Of Vengeance

Overview

“Let's be honest: Who hasn't fantasized about shooting someone in the face with a hunting rifle?”

One day, a thirteen-year-old girl decides to startle a classmate. Instead, she accidentally kills him.

And she likes it.

Over the years, she begins experimenting with murder. Her victims are, of course, people that deserve it: a careless driver, a CEO of an energy corporation that is destroying the planet, a rapist. Every crime scene is flawless — untraceable and made to look like an accident or suicide. But, as she sleepwalks through her day job and lives in a crummy apartment, one thing becomes increasingly clear: she needs more.

Because nothing compares to the thrill of violent retribution.

Reviews

Kurtness writes smoothly … Readers into passive-aggressive fantasies will best appreciate this one. 

Publishers Weekly

A chilling justification of a life of violence, as nonchalant as it is grim.

Kirkus Reviews

In deceptively simple prose, Kurtness mounts a poignant and timely argument about the danger of running headlong into the hands of technologies we don’t fully understand....The true horror in Of Vengeance lies in Kurtness’s ability to sway you to the protagonist’s side; more than once, I caught myself wholeheartedly agreeing with her worldview. Part of the reason she’s so relatable is that she’s not just a villain, she’s a victim as well.

Montreal Review of Books

This chiseled writing, this extraordinary character and this particular humour may seduce the most difficult reader

Le Devoir

About the Authors