‘Mare of Easttown’ review: Kate Winslet delivers masterclass in character building

The actor’s turn as a detective struggling with her personal demons is absolutely stunning, in a murder-mystery that keeps us guessing right till the very end

The best crime fiction transcends its genre limitations by using the crime as a character study. How do these different characters react when they come into contact with murder? The detective is the outsider, who comes to the community where the crime has been committed, solves the crime and moves on. A police procedural on the other hand, features investigators who are very much part of the community but are still outsiders in the way that the police force would always be. So you have Ian Rankin’s Rebus or Ruth Rendell’s Wexford and Henning Mankell’s Wallander — brilliant and flawed truth seekers trying their best to keep their communities safe even as they go through a great deal of lacerating soul searching. We can welcome Mare Sheehan (Kate Winslet) into this jolly roster of crime busters. Mare is a detective sergeant in Easttown, a speck of a town in Pennsylvania. Like all good investigators in fiction, Mare is dealing with multiple personal problems while solving a homicide and following up on a teenager’s disappearance a year ago.