If you want a gripping, at times frustratingly odd story told well, Evil Genius does the job.

Perhaps the most startling thing about the whole enthralling enterprise is the way that the work of filmmakers Barbara Schroeder and Trey Borzillieri might have lined up their subjects for a potential new death-penalty case.

It's a cracking watch, and although later episodes drag slightly, you'll forgive anything when the first reveal is such a stunner.

This fascinating four-part Netflix true crime doco investigates the 'Pizza Bomber' case, a bizarre bank heist which occurred in the town of Erie, Pennsylvania in 2003.

It's well done. Duplass brothers moxie, decent pacing, broad scope, and lots and lots of crazy. Enough crazy to last you for days.

Evil Genius sits squarely in the "intense docudrama" format with which the network has had so much recent success.

With Evil Genius there's actually a sense of discovery, and a crime spree so unusual that it genuinely approximates a Coen brothers movie, down to the quirky assortment of culprits and stooges.

But its portrayal of Diehl-Armstrong, the mentally ill woman to whom the title "evil genius" refers, is what breeds the most fascination and frustration.

Evil Genius twists the investigation into a story of compulsion. It is a compulsion for the cops, both state and federal, who follow it for fifteen years without closure.

Evil Genius isn't quite as immaculately conceived as Wild Wild Country, or, for that matter, Making a Murderer, but it's an unnervingly intimate profile of a fascinatingly evil character - a worthy addition to this Golden Age of True Crime.

This is the kind of true-crime story that could benefit from a slower pace. But it's so fascinating I could see myself watching six to eight episodes.

A a tragic, unsettling story unfolds involving a series of manipulative, destructive people with no moral compass to speak of.

Told using re-creation, interviews and footage from the time, there's a haunting and unsettling feel as the conspiracy starts to unravel, and the motivations that drove the people who carried out the heist - partially at least - become apparent.

As its stunning final truths come to light, the show transforms into a condemnation of our justice system. Still, it's Diehl-Armstrong who, long after Evil Genius has concluded, proves most difficult to shake.

Overall, there's a lot to be compelled by in Evil Genius... Netflix has once again proven itself to be the place for the best docu-series on television.