After leaving Atlanta in disgrace three years before, detective Thomas Canby is called back to the city on the eve of Atlanta's 1881 International Cotton Exposition to partner with Atlanta's first African American police officer, Cyrus Underwood. The case they're assigned is chilling: a serial murderer who seems to be violently targeting Atlanta's wealthiest black entrepreneurs. The killer's method is both strange and unusually gruesome. On each victim's mutilated body is inscribed a letter of the alphabet, beginning with "M."

Dr. Jacob Thacker is on probation for Xanax abuse. His interim career --- working public relations for the dean at South Carolina Medical College --- takes an unnerving detour into the past when the bones of African American slaves are unearthed on campus. Out of the college’s dark past, these bones threaten to rise and condemn the present.