After Titus Crown resigned from the FBI, he returned to his home—the rural Charon County, Virginia—and became the first black sheriff in their history. The position is fraught with risks in a place struggling to reconcile its racist history.

Titus must reconcile his own past. He’s still coming to terms with his mother’s death when he was a child, an event that shattered his faith in church and drove a wedge between he and his father and brother. He claims to be back home to work on those relationships, but his high-flying FBI career ended in a shroud of mystery and self-doubt.

When a popular high school teacher is gunned down in a classroom, deputies confront the perpetrator on the steps of the high school and gun him down. His dying words commanded Titus to check the teacher’s phone.

What the sheriff finds on the phone is beyond horrific—video footage of the ritualistic torture and slaying of seven black teenagers by the high school teacher, the man who killed him, and a third man wearing a mask.

Titus and his deputies hunt for the unknown man, but as they get closer, people who appear to have some connection are found murdered in heinous ways.