The Sinner

The basis for the Emmy-nominated ＂instantly gripping＂ (Washington Post) anthology series on USA starring Jessica Biel, The Sinner is an internationally bestselling psychological thriller surrounding an unexplained murdert

On a sunny summer afternoon by the lake, Cora Bender stabs a complete stranger to death. Why? What would cause this quiet, kind young mother to commit such a startling act of violence in front of her family and friends?

Cora quickly confesses and it seems like an open-and-shut case. But the police commissioner, haunted by these unaswered questions, refuses to close the file and begins his own maverick investigation. So begins the slow unraveling of Cora’s past, a harrowing descent into the depths of her own psyche and the violent secrets buried within. The Sinner is a dark, spell spellbinding novel, where the truth is to be questioned at every turn.

＂As I read [the novel], I kept going, ’I know where this is going--there’s no way this could be interesting.’ And then it would just take a com­pletely different direction.＂ --Jessica Biel

＂The Sinner is unnerving and weird and guaranteed to stick with you weeks later.＂ --Sarah Weinman, editor of Troubled Daughters, Twisted Wives and Women Crime Writers

＂Hauntingly insightful and sensitive.＂ --The Guardian

Hailed as Germany’s Patricia Highsmith, Petra Hammesfahr has written more than twenty crime and suspense novels, and also writes scripts for film and television. She has won numerous literary prizes, including the Crime Prize of Wiesbaden and the Rhineland Literary Prize. Her breakthrough novel, The Sinner, was a major critical and commercial success internationally, including in Germany, where it stayed on the bestseller list for more than fifteen months. The Sinner has been adapted for television as a limited series on USA starring Jessica Biel and Bill Pullman.