Cry Rape: The True Story of One Woman's Harrowing Quest for Justice

Lueders, news editor of a weekly Madison, Wis., paper, opens this real-life drama in the wee hours of Sept. 4, 1997, when Patty, a 38-year-old legally blind single mother sharing an apartment with her pregnant daughter, was raped in her bedroom by an intruder who held a knife to her neck. The rape was the beginning of a seven-year nightmare in which police, saying they couldn't find evidence of the rape, bullied Patty into saying she had lied, and she was charged with obstruction of justice. Patty almost went bankrupt trying to salvage what little was left of her reputation and sanity. Lueders spells out how Patty suffered from incompetence and bias at every level of law enforcement. The DA eventually dropped the charges against her, and DNA evidence helped convict the rapist, but some law enforcement officials continue to insist they did nothing wrong. This account by Lueders (An Enemy of the State: The Life of Erwin Knoll ), one of the first people who went to bat for Patty, is a shocking revelation of the abuse rape victims are sometimes subjected to by the very people who should be seeking justice for them. (Nov.)