Ohio Confidential

What could have been a long read in the Times is turned with the power of dark rainy footage, aerial and drive through shots of Ohio, into a detective story.

In proper noir fashion it starts with a dead body that speaks - through a book he just wrote - to us about events that brought him there.

We get to listen to actual FBI wiretaps as the would-be conspirators unfold their pay-to-play scheme, which turns out to be neither small-money nor hare-brained.

And we have just only zoomed in on a corner of Ohio state politics, and have even accidentally stumbled onto the plot through wiretaps set up for a different reason.

America has had these and much worse the last 10-15 years with paid influence on an unprecedented scale and, not least around elections, taking place in open view. It's made for an unstable world, indiffferent or openly hostile to the weak and disenfranchised, cruel to people and home, but those who manipulate for personal gain can finally attain those very well known cures to unhappiness; maybe a good house, a fancy car, or to pluck an example from here, a newly renovated kitchen.

This is only the first episode, and I see they turn to electoral financing in the second, so there will be more to say.