Era mucho el miedo by Gloria Inés Peláez and En el brazo del río by Marbel Sandoval Ordóñez: The Novels of the Second State in Colombia.

This article examines how Colombian women crime writers Marbel Sandoval Ordóñez and Gloria Inés Peláez portray the systemic violence against women within Colombia's ongoing armed conflict, conceptualized as the "Second State" by Rita Segato—a parallel illegal power structure thriving on brutal violence, especially targeting women. Through analysis of the novels *En el brazo del río* (2006) and *Era mucho el miedo* (2016), the article highlights how these works reveal the intersection of patriarchal oppression, land dispossession, and armed violence, challenging the traditionally male-dominated crime fiction genre in Colombia. It situates these narratives within broader theoretical frameworks on biopower, necropolitics, and gendered violence, emphasizing the marginalization of women's experiences in Colombian literature and society. The article argues that these novels give voice to silenced female victims and critique the impunity and misogyny embedded in Colombia's socio-political realities, calling for greater academic and social recognition of women's perspectives in conflict literature.