Hazel Greenlee takes a new job as the transcriber of police reports in Black Harbor, the most crime-ridden town in Wisconsin. As various officers and detectives record reports for her, they start each transmission with the phase, “Hello, Transcriber.”

Through the reports, she follows multiple suspicious deaths, all linked back to a mysterious drug dealer known as the Candy Man. As she works to understand what’s happening, she becomes romantically involved with Detective Nikolai Kole who carries his own dark secrets. Her affair threatens to dissolve what remains of her failing marriage.

The closer she gets to understand the crimes in the town, the more her life is in danger.