The Sinner season 4: The Festering Seaside

The Sinner starring Bill Pullman as Harry Ambrose came to a hard end last night -- hard in terms of it's not only the end of the season but the series (unless another enlightened network or streaming service picks it up), and hard in terms of everything is difficult for Harry, as he tries to navigate his life through the murders and mayhem he's always prone to investigate.

Harry is really a detective like no other.  Plagued with his own problems, including his masochistic taste in sex, utterly devoted to his investigations, to seeking the truth, with or without a badge, no villain or pervert wants Harry on his or her case.   But each investigation, even though it results in the truth at last revealed, takes its toll on Harry.

At the beginning of the fourth season, Harry is so distraught he's on the verge of taking his own life.  What saves him is witnessing a suicide, as Percy, whom Harry has briefly established a connection with as some kind of kindred sufferer, jumps off a cliff, literally, before Harry's very eyes.  He cannot help but be drawn into an investigation of why that happened, even though it's not a murder.   His investigation uncovers all sorts of underbellies of life, in a sleepy seaside town in Maine festering with crime, resentment, dysfunctional families, and touches of depravity. Fans of Hightown will recognize the environment.

Harry finds some peace in the end in working through the labyrinth to finally understand why Percy jumped.  But he doesn't yet have much peace in his soul, and this means there's ample opportunity for future stories in the world of The Sinner, Harry's world.  I hope we can see them sooner rather than later.  But Harry is such a timeless character, and Pullman brings him to life so well, that I'd be up for seeing more of Harry any time that's on a screen.

See also The Sinner 3.1: Second Degree Murder, First Degree Detective ... The Sinner 3.2:  The Contractor and the Contractee ... The Sinner 3.3: The Baby Monster ... The Sinner 3.4-5: Why Doesn't Harry Just Arrest Jamie ... The Sinner 3.6: Faustian Bargains ... The Sinner 3.7: Confession and Connection ... The Sinner season 3 Finale: Short Hair, with a Beard

And see also The Sinner 2.1: The Boy ... The Sinner 2.2:  Heather's Story ... The Sinner 2.3: Julian's Mother ... The Sinner 2.5: The Scapegoat ... The Simmer 2.7: Occluded Past Unwound - Mostly ... The Sinner Season 2 Finale: The Ambiguity of Harry

And see also: The Sinner season one: Wild, Unconventional, Irresistible Mystery

 

The Sinner Season 3 Finale: Short Hair, with a Beard

A powerful, powerfully odd season 3 finale of The Sinner tonight, including a cut to black ending with no closing credits.

Before that, why didn't Harry shoot Jamie sooner, after Jamie came this close to killing Harry's grandson?   But Harry's reaction afterwards, trying to save then comfort the dying Jamie, and then breaking down to Sonya, that makes perfect sense.  Harry shared such an essential part of Jamie that Harry felt that he killed a part of himself.

The best thing to come out of this season for Harry is finding someone like Sonya.  She clearly felt some kind of kinship with Jamie, too.  That's why she didn't leave her home after Harry warned her that Jamie was coming to do her harm.  She had to face Jamie, to talk to him, because she felt she could better know herself via that encounter.  So Harry and Sonya have a good basis for a relationship: they both had an attraction, see something of themselves, in this deeply troubled psycho (I guess that's redundant - deeply troubled psycho - but it seems an apt description of Jamie.)

Another puzzle:  unless I imagined it, I thought I saw a shot of Jamie with short hair and the beginning of a beard in the what's-ahead splash in the commercial break.   Did I imagine that?  If not, what was that?  A shot from an alternate ending in which Jamie somehow survived?

Questions like that get to what's really unique about The Sinner: stories just this side of insanity, that quote Jung, as Jamie did tonight, that draw you in because they have just that necessary minimum of logic, but increasingly flirt with going off the rails.

More than enough for me to know I'll be watching the next season, if there is one!

See also The Sinner 3.1: Second Degree Murder, First Degree Detective ... The Sinner 3.2:  The Contractor and the Contractee ... The Sinner 3.3: The Baby Monster ... The Sinner 3.4-5: Why Doesn't Harry Just Arrest Jamie ... The Sinner 3.6: Faustian Bargains ... The Sinner 3.7: Confession and Connection

And see also The Sinner 2.1: The Boy ... The Sinner 2.2:  Heather's Story ... The Sinner 2.3: Julian's Mother ... The Sinner 2.5: The Scapegoat ... The Simmer 2.7: Occluded Past Unwound - Mostly ... The Sinner Season 2 Finale: The Ambiguity of Harry

And see also: The Sinner season one: Wild, Unconventional, Irresistible Mystery

 

The Sinner 3.7: Confession and Connection

A powerful, pivotal episode 3.7 of The Sinner last night, in which Harry's decision to spend the night in a grave bears fruit.  Of course, given that this is The Sinner, Harry's insano strategy bears fruit that is not entirely sweet.

He gets a confession from Jamie - recorded - after the written confession is burned.  But it doesn't stand up in court, because Jamie's attorney lets the judge know that Harry has been more than a detective investigating Jamie.  They have become, well, also friends.

And that's indeed the crux of this story.  Jamie is seeking to recreate with Harry the relationship Jamie had with Nick (whom Jamie let die).  And Harry finds in Jamie someone who can speak to that inchoate vulnerability, searing sensitivity to life and its bruises that Harry has always carried in his soul.

And, therefore, the judge releases Jamie.  And (of course) there's a steep price to be paid.  Jamie kills Harry's boss in a scene shot in Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx, where my wife grew up, and where we lived and raised two kids, until we moved a bit up north.  Fortunately, we never ran into Jamie on those steep stairs.

Next week is the season finale.  I have to say that, with last night's next-to-last of the season episode, this year's Sinner had fallen into much better place.  Of course, I mean that in terms of plot, not what's happening to the characters, and I'll let you know what I think of how all of that works out next week.

See also The Sinner 3.1: Second Degree Murder, First Degree Detective ... The Sinner 3.2:  The Contractor and the Contractee ... The Sinner 3.3: The Baby Monster ... The Sinner 3.4-5: Why Doesn't Harry Just Arrest Jamie ... The Sinner 3.6: Faustian Bargains

And see also The Sinner 2.1: The Boy ... The Sinner 2.2:  Heather's Story ... The Sinner 2.3: Julian's Mother ... The Sinner 2.5: The Scapegoat ... The Simmer 2.7: Occluded Past Unwound - Mostly ... The Sinner Season 2 Finale: The Ambiguity of Harry

And see also: The Sinner season one: Wild, Unconventional, Irresistible Mystery

 

The Sinner 3.6: Faustian Bargains

Ok, I now at least understand why Harry doesn't just arrest Jamie, to get him off the street, since Harry knows Jamie murdered at least twice.  In The Sinner 3.6 the answer becomes clear: Harry realizes that Jamie holds a key to helping Harry understand at least some of Harry's troubled soul.

It's the most philosophic episode we've seen so far, with references to Kierkegaard, Aquinas, and, of course, the ever alluring Nietzsche and his ocular abyss.  And it ends with Harry taking Jamie up on his offer to let Jamie bury him, in  return for a written confession which Harry has in his pocket, but agrees to burn, if Jamie digs him up.

Which makes no sense, if you think about it.  What does Harry gain if Jamie digs him up - surely better than letting Harry die - but the price Harry has to pay for that is burning Jamie's confession?  It makes no sense for Harry the detective.  But it does make sense for Harry the troubled soul, which, in a way, is what The Sinner has always been about.

It's not going too far to say The Sinner in the three seasons we've seen so far is not just the psychos Harry hunts down, but Harry himself.   And, just for good measure, we also learn in this episode that the painter that Harry is now sleeping with is somewhat out of her mind, herself.

The philosophers who probe such questions are indeed good accompaniment to such a narrative.  So would Faust and his notorious bargain.   It's only television, but viewers of this series are in effect parties to this bargain as well.

See also The Sinner 3.1: Second Degree Murder, First Degree Detective ... The Sinner 3.2:  The Contractor and the Contractee ... The Sinner 3.3: The Baby Monster ... The Sinner 3.4-5: Why Doesn't Harry Just Arrest Jamie

And see also The Sinner 2.1: The Boy ... The Sinner 2.2:  Heather's Story ... The Sinner 2.3: Julian's Mother ... The Sinner 2.5: The Scapegoat ... The Simmer 2.7: Occluded Past Unwound - Mostly ... The Sinner Season 2 Finale: The Ambiguity of Harry

And see also: The Sinner season one: Wild, Unconventional, Irresistible Mystery

 

The Sinner 3.4-5: Why Doesn't Harry Just Arrest Jamie?

Didn't get a chance to review The Sinner 3.4, so I'll review both 3.4 and 3.5 right here. The question for me which looms ever larger in 3.4 and 3.5 is why doesn't Harry just arrest Jamie already?

Episode 3.4 was actually a great standalone episode, which reminded me a lot of Martin Scorsese's After Hours (1985), a nightmare night if there ever was one in lower Manhattan.  In The Sinner, Harry goes an escalating crisis of trying to contain Jamie, or get some kind of confession from him, which ends with Harry passed out in his car (he took some strong drug for his sciatica) and Jamie on the loose with an opportunity to kill someone, which he does.

But why doesn't Harry arrest Jamie already?  I know, he doesn't have much evidence, or at least enough evidence on Jamie.  And before the frenzied killing at the end of episode 3.4, Jamie was at most guilty of the weakest kind of murder - letting someone bleed out - if that is even any kind of murder at all.  But all through 3.5, Harry becomes increasingly aware that Jamie has killed and could kill again.  Why is Harry pussy-footing around?

On the plus side of 3.5, it was good to see Harry kiss the artist, and nice to see her say that "was nice".  Long suffering Harry - suffering not only physically but emotionally - could use a little sexual healing in his life, not to mention eventually some love.

Despite my unwillingness to suspend my disbelief about Harry letting Jamie stay on the loose, I'm really enjoying this season, especially the New York City scenes, and the scenes in that fictional upstate town, which is really none of other than Hartsdale, or at least the Hartsdale train station, in our reality.

See also The Sinner 3.1: Second Degree Murder, First Degree Detective ... The Sinner 3.2:  The Contractor and the Contractee ... The Sinner 3.3: The Baby Monster

And see also The Sinner 2.1: The Boy ... The Sinner 2.2:  Heather's Story ... The Sinner 2.3: Julian's Mother ... The Sinner 2.5: The Scapegoat ... The Simmer 2.7: Occluded Past Unwound - Mostly ... The Sinner Season 2 Finale: The Ambiguity of Harry

And see also: The Sinner season one: Wild, Unconventional, Irresistible Mystery

 

The Sinner 3.3: The Baby

An especially chilling episode of The Sinner - 3.3 - this past Thursday because, well, the focus of Jamie's psychotic urges was a baby.  His and his wife Leela's.

Nothing happens to their baby, but the mixture of a sweet young newborn and Jamie was disconcerting in a way that psychos in television drama usually are not.  Ambroise, hearing about at least a little of this from Jamie, gets him to a hospital, with a shrink, and security.  But Jamie, before Ambrose's very eyes, bolts.  Which I don't quite get - that is, I don't get why hospital security let that happen.

We saw that the doctor questioning Jamie was disturbed by what he was hearing.  So the doc did nothing because .... what Jamie said was insufficient to hold him?  Talk about letting a baby fall to the floor was insufficient?

The Sinner is and has always been about crime and psychosis of one kind or another than you don't find elsewhere on television.  Jamie and his baby has certainly brought that to a whole new frightening level.  And what's Ambrose now going to do?  Allow Jamie to go home to his wife and baby?

The one bright spot in this episode was the slight flicker of romance between Ambrose and that artist.  It was sweet when she asked for Ambrose's helping hand to climb over a log or a ditch or whatever, Ambrose gives it but remarks that she didn't really need it, and she replies that "someone has to break the ice".   Cool.   But, Ambrose, do something about that baby.  At least, get Leela and the baby out of the house,

See also The Sinner 3.1: Second Degree Murder, First Degree Detective ... The Sinner 3.2:  The Contractor and the Contractee

And see also The Sinner 2.1: The Boy ... The Sinner 2.2:  Heather's Story ... The Sinner 2.3: Julian's Mother ... The Sinner 2.5: The Scapegoat ... The Simmer 2.7: Occluded Past Unwound - Mostly ... The Sinner Season 2 Finale: The Ambiguity of Harry

And see also: The Sinner season one: Wild, Unconventional, Irresistible Mystery

 

The Sinner 3.2: The Contactor and the Contactee

The plot thickened in The Sinner 3.2, as of course it always does in this deep, multi-layered well of a mystery.   We learn, for example, that Jamie initiated the recent contact with Nick, which, after who know what else happened, culminates with Jamie letting Nick bleed out and die after the car accident.

This is important.  It shows, in case we had any doubt, that Jamie's letting Nick die was far more than just letting an old friend or accomplice die, after he showed up unexpectedly at Jamie's door, implicitly threatening Jamie and his pregnant wife.  Jamie's prior recent contact with Nick tilts the balance towards Jamie being the really bad guy in this story.  Which should not be all that surprising, since Ambroise is investigating Jamie.

Jamie's earlier contact of Nick even suggests that Nick may be more of a victim of Jamie than at first we thought.   Who else was or is a continuing victim of Jamie?  Likely Sonya the artist whose house Jamie and Nick were near, and whose property Jamie goes back to visit, looking for his cellphone.  Though I suppose there's a chance she also is some kind of accomplice.

It also just occurred me to that maybe there's more of a connection between Nick and Leela than at first seemed the case.  For all we know, Leela could have been faking her lack of knowledge of Nick, for Jamie's sake.  Hey, for all we know, Nick could be the father of Leela's baby - though that's likely going too far, even for The Sinner.

But you just never know, is the whole point of The Sinner.  As Ambroise investigates, he always discovers things that were right in front of him, and therefore us, all along.  Which is what makes The Sinner such good television, and I have to say I'm so far enjoying this season more than season 2, jand ust as much as season 1.

See also The Sinner 3.1: Second Degree Murder, First Degree Detective

And see also The Sinner 2.1: The Boy ... The Sinner 2.2:  Heather's Story ... The Sinner 2.3: Julian's Mother ... The Sinner 2.5: The Scapegoat ... The Simmer 2.7: Occluded Past Unwound - Mostly ... The Sinner Season 2 Finale: The Ambiguity of Harry

And see also: The Sinner season one: Wild, Unconventional, Irresistible Mystery

 

The Sinner 3.1: Second Degree Murder, First Degree Detective

The Sinner was back tonight for its third season, which, at first blush, looks to be more of a straight-up whodunnit than the first two seasons, or at least the second season, which is fine in my book,

Harry Ambroise is in pretty good shape, suffering mainly from an intermittent sciatica.   Bill Pullman, as always, is perfect for this role, with just the right mix and degree of savvy and vulnerability. He's suspicious of the passenger survivor of a car crash which killed the driver.  As ever, Harry is right.

The survivor is some kind of psycho, a high school teacher in upstate New York, Jamie, well played by Matt Bomer.  His wife is very pregnant.  His college buddy Nick shows up, apparently unannounced, and references some kind of unexplained things they did together in college.

Those things were presumably not good, and at least in part involved a woman who now lives in some kind of driving distance from Jamie.  Nick wants to pay her a visit, Jamie does not. Nick refuses to listen, Jamie pulls the emergency break on the car which causes it to crash.   Jamie is relatively unhurt, and refuses to call 911.  That act, according to Harry, would constitute second degree murder.

But how will Harry prove that, and what else will he find in Jamie's past and present?  I don't think we knew so much about the killer in the first two seasons, this soon in the narrative, and that makes this season of The Sinner especially interesting.  See you back here next week.

See also The Sinner 2.1: The Boy ... The Sinner 2.2:  Heather's Story ... The Sinner 2.3: Julian's Mother ... The Sinner 2.5: The Scapegoat ... The Simmer 2.7: Occluded Past Unwound - Mostly ... The Sinner Season 2 Finale: The Ambiguity of Harry

And see also: The Sinner season one: Wild, Unconventional, Irresistible Mystery

 

The Sinner 2.7: Occluded Past Unwound - Mostly

The Sinner really came together - or maybe, its occluded past unwound - in episode 2.7 earlier this week, the next-to-last episode of this season.

We finally have almost all the pieces in the puzzle of how and why Julian came to murder the couple who were driving him to Niagara Falls.  He thought he was being kidnapped.  They weren't his parents.  And, actually, he was being kidnapped, by his mother, Marin, who had prevailed upon the couple to bring her biological son to her.

So that part is mostly settled.   But there's a new mystery, which could be connected to a piece of the original mystery of Julian and the poison he administered.   Who shot Marin to death?  We saw that Julian had access to Marin's gun.  This of course suggests that Julian killed her.   But we also saw Marin talking on the phone, to someone who in some way was her accomplice in her retrieval of Julian.

Who was that?  The only one who makes any sense is Lionel Jeffries aka The Beacon.  He's after all Julian's father.   And he's been missing from Mosswood.  We assumed he was dead, but we never actually saw him killed.   And... if Jeffries killed Marin, is there some way that he killed the original couple, or at least, helped prepare the deadly tea?

The main argument against that is why didn't he then take Julian with him?   Will be good to see how this all works out in the finale of this strange, compelling season of this strange, compelling series.

See also The Sinner 2.1: The Boy ... The Sinner 2.2:  Heather's Story ... The Sinner 2.3: Julian's Mother ... The Sinner 2.5: The Scapegoat

And see also: The Sinner season one: Wild, Unconventional, Irresistible Mystery

 

The Sinner 2.5: The Scapegoat

A strong episode of The Sinner tonight - 2.5 - after last week's episode 2.4, which was also strong, with its God knows what happened to Harry at the end, but I didn't get a chance to review.

The most interesting and possibly the most profound aspect of tonight's episode was the Beacon's literal adoption of the ancient scapegoat sacrifice, in which a poor goat that everyone in the community has loved and cared for is slaughtered in the interest of expiating everyone's sins.  His understanding of ancient Greece, however, is somewhat flawed, when he calls this exercise a "catharsis".  The Greeks were not talking about killing goats but releasing pent-up emotions through art.  Freud later expanded this concept to any human activity that resulted in an emotional release, with an emphasis on safe activities that did this.  So, any way you cut this, the Beacon was somewhat out of his mind or jumbling the truth.  No surprise.

Otherwise, the people in town - just about everyone - are closing ranks in their protection of Mosswood, including getting Harry removed from the case.  This is an old story with Harry - going at least as far back as last season - and he's used to it.   He'll continue to work on this case regardless of how many people want him off it, and it's good to seeing him do just that at the end.

In additional news from the commune, it looks as if Marin was killed at some point, after giving birth to Julian.   But we should've learned by now not to take anything for granted in The Sinner, including conclusions which evidence seems to be pointing at.  All of which is to say I won't be surprised if Marin turns up alive before this season is over, despite that coming attraction of the skeleton being pulled out of the lake.

And here's a prediction, which I guess is pretty obvious:  I think we'll see Vera and Harry in bed before the end, if that hasn't happened already in that black-out for Harry at the end of 2.5.  And, for a variety of reasons, I think that would be a good thing for Harry.

See also The Sinner 2.1: The Boy ... The Sinner 2.2:  Heather's Story ... The Sinner 2.3: Julian's Mother

And see also: The Sinner season one: Wild, Unconventional, Irresistible Mystery

 

The Sinner 2.3: Julian's Mother

An excellent episode 2.3 of The Sinner tonight - continuing to present the exploits of one of the most humanely compelling detectives ever on television: Harry Ambrose.

But the biggest detective scoop tonight comes from his de facto partner, Heather Novack, who discovers that Julian's mother is none other than Heather's missing lover of 12 years ago, Marin.   We also learn in this extended packet of information that Marin is not necessarily dead.  She's just missing.

The important development comes at the very end, when the doctor who signed Julian's birth certificate takes his own life in the present, rather than continue the interview by Harry and Heather.  That's because he's a member of the Mosswood cult (by the way, does that head in the stone carving look a little like George Washington in profile, or is that just me?)

Meanwhile, Harry continues to provide an appealing combination of smarts and empathy - for Julian and Heather, if not so much himself.  It was therefore good to see him cross paths with a love interest from his youth, who reveals to us that he's now divorced (good).   This provides at least the hope of his having a healthy romantic relationship with someone.  (On that account, it's worth noting that we haven't seen Harry go for that dominatrix stuff that dominated the first season.)

Looking forward to the next episode - when, with any luck, Harry and we will find more evidence that what Julian did was justifiable homicide.

And before I go - good to see Logan Crawford at the beginning, playing a reporter, which he frequently does - in addition to being an actual news guy and anchor in real life.  Here's a clip of Crawford on The Fresh Outlook interviewing me and another panelist a few years ago about Hurricane Katrina 10 years later, Facebook, and other stories:





See also The Sinner 2.1: The Boy ... The Sinner 2.2:  Heather's Story

And see also: The Sinner season one: Wild, Unconventional, Irresistible Mystery

 

The Sinner 2.2: Heather's Story

The second episode of the second season of The Sinner, just on tonight, was mostly devoted to Heather.  She's Harry's de facto partner in the investigation.  And tonight we learn that, just as Harry has a strange past barely revealed, so does Heather - and hers concerns Mosswood Grove, the commune in which Julian, his mother, and the couple he (presumably) killed all lived.

We find that Heather had a friend who disappeared in some way on the commune.  More than that, her friend was her lover - or, at least, they were romantically involved - and her friend was clearly attracted to one of the men on the commune.  Beyond that ... who knows ... other than something likely no good happened to the friend.  And while we're at it, we don't know how much or what Heather knows about happened to her friends.  That's the way The Sinner rolls - doling out the bare necessity of information, which makes the narrative even more appealing.

Harry has a good conversation with Julian.  Conversation is Harry's strong suit.  He learns from every sentence, every facial expression of the person he's talking to.   In the first season, Cora mostly wanted his help.   Julian isn't there yet.  But I'm guessing at some point Harry will get through to him.

Julian's mother seems the likely villain at this point, but, knowing The Sinner, it just can't be as simple as that.  Is she really in or out of command in Mosswood, despite the impression she gives of being in control?  And, if so, who then - what person or group - is really calling the shots?

However well disguised that is, we can count on Harry to unravel it, and I'm looking forward to seeing how he does it.

See also The Sinner 2.1: The Boy

And see also: The Sinner season one: Wild, Unconventional, Irresistible Mystery

 

The Sinner 2.1: The Boy

Great to see The Sinner begin its second season on the USA Network - for me, tonight, just a few minutes after my wife and I binge watched the first season on Netflix, which we thought was outstanding.  It's of course too soon to tell if the second season will be as brilliant and transfixing as the first, but it looks to have most of the ingredients.

Cora's case is over.  The perpetrator this time - presumably - is a 13-year old boy, who poisons his parents to death.   I say "presumably" because, unlike in the first season, we didn't actually see the act - the boy putting the poison in the tea he brought his parents - as we did with Cora stabbing Frank on the beach in the first season.  But the kid sure looks guilty.  He brought them the tea, and (so far) we know of no one who might have put in the poison without his knowledge.

And I guess you could also say "presumably" about the victims being his parents.  We know he was on some sort of religious commune, and it's likely that his parents took him away from that.  But, for all we know, his real mother is back on the commune, and the victims were not his parents.  A woman shows up at the end and says she's the boy's mother.

Fortunately, Harry's back on the case.  He's the essence of the series.  And, fortunately for the narrative, the double murder has taken place in his home town, affording him and us a chance to see what it was back then that deformed his childhood, and therein the rest of his life.

I'm very much looking to seeing and reviewing the rest of this season.

See also: The Sinner season one: Wild, Unconventional, Irresistible Mystery

 

The Sinner season one: Wild, Unconventional, Irresistible Mystery

My wife spotted an admiring review of The Sinner, which just began its second season on the USA Network.   Before watching that, we binge watched the first season on Netflix.  Herewith my review - and then in my next post, a review of The Sinner 2.1.

The Sinner (season one) is a police detective mystery like nothing I've seen before on television.  A seemingly happy woman, married and with a young child, stabs to death a guy on the beach, in front of everyone.   Cora, brilliantly played by Jessica Biel, knows that she did this, but hasn't really a clue as to why.  Clearly, she was the furthest thing from happy.  Fortunately for her, Detective Harry Ambrose, takes an interest in her case.

Bill Pullman does a great job playing Harry, a sort of modern-day Columbo, with the some same schlepish qualities as Columbo, and certainly as smart, but endowed with dark past that, as far we know, Columbo didn't have.  Against all odds, Harry pursues the case and discovers why Cora did what she did.

The burden of the story was enormous - how can someone, who we saw with our own eyes brutally murder a guy who was posing no immediate threat to anyone, have any justification for doing this? But the first season pays off amply and in full at the end, as the complicated motive and all the moving parts fit into place.  The result leaves of us wanting more of this indefatigable detective.

The name Sinner is no accident, since a crucial part of Cora's story is why she was motivated to take her sickly sister out of their house, with a mother whose religious bent crippled rather than supported her daughters.   The locale - the Kingston area of New York - also worked well for the ambience.  Harry would have had much more trouble getting his way had he been obliged to conduct the investigation in New York City.

Anyway, enough said about the plot, I don't want to give anything more away.  Snap this up if you're in the mood for a wild, unconventional, irresistible mystery.  And I'll be back in a few minutes with my review of The Sinner 2.1.