Power to Hurt

I'm an avid true crime reader and sometimes get jaded but this book really grabbed me and took me on a rollercoaster of emotions. It's hard to believe that one person would be allowed to hold the power that Lanier did and hard to believe that a high court would release him the way they did. I have complete admiration for the women who stood up to this disgusting piece of "humanity", their courage is a model for all women!

Darcy O'Brien has done an outstanding job of putting skeptics like myself in place of the victims. While I have a rather extensive library of true crime books, this one is the most riveting. As I read though, I couldn't help but make the inevitable comparison to another elected official who also appears to operate under "color of law."

As with all of Darcy O'Brien's work, the greatest aspect of this book is his gift for bringing people off the page and into your living room. Without condescension, he manages to bring dignity to the victim Vivian while maintaining professional distance. With well-chosen description and a strong sense of allowing the situations to speak for themselves, Darcy O'Brien managed to strip away years and years of filth from a typical American town and expose what those women - and without a doubt, many more women - suffer at the hands of those in power.

POWER TO HURT describes in painful and moving detail a very real incident of sexual harrassment in our society. It deals with a local judge in Tennessee who extracts sexual favors from women appearing before his court. This is the type of outrageous behavior the feminists should be addressing today, instead of whining about the perceived slights and disadvanatges they complain about in elite groups and the corridors of an effete academe. Cheers for Darcy O'Brien! Charles B. Clement, Chicago, IL

This book was so incredibly frightening, because it chronicles one of the darkest crimes imaginable. This powerful, sexually deviant judge takes advantage of powerless women and rapes and sodomizes them. He actually gets away with it! Every woman and man in America should read this book, to remind them that these abuses of power are still happening in this country, and it is our responsiblity to do something about it!