What’s stranger than an eight-year-old Gretchen White standing over her murdered Aunt Rowan holding a knife dripping with blood? That child growing up to be a sociopath who works for the Boston police department and uses her access to investigate the crime, which she can’t remember. There’s a lot to learn here, and part of it is Dr. White’s lesson that her sociopathy is a neurodivergence, not a moral failing. Its core element—the inability to empathize with others—makes Gretchen an unlikely but effective psychologist, as her feelings don’t get in the way, as well as an oddly endearing villain. She’s highly aware of her emotional shortcomings, but others are too, and her vulnerability to the possible machinations of those surrounding this crime keeps the psychological twists coming. From the warped, rich family to the local woman desperate to find who murdered her sister—a separate crime that might be related to Aunt Rowan’s death—everyone’s a mess here, and everyone has motives and history that are painstakingly revealed and entwined. One for fans of Dexter and other characters we should loathe, but don’t.
