During a vigil calling for police reform, students from Spelman College, a historically black women’s institution, are assaulted by rifle fire from a passing vehicle. While other detectives take the lead on the Spelman murders, Detective Sarah “Salt” Alt is tasked to investigate the case of a recently discovered decomposed body. When she combs through the missing-persons reports, it becomes clear the victim is a girl Salt took into custody two years before, and Salt feels a grave responsibility to learn the truth about how the girl died. But before she can pursue any leads, Salt is called onto emergency riot detail. In a city burdened by history and a community erupting in pain and anger, Salt must delve into the past for answers.

On her first day as a newly minted homicide detective, Sarah “Salt” Alt is given the cold-case murder of a blues musician whose death was originally ruled an accidental drug overdose. Now new evidence has come to light that he may have been given a hot dose intentionally. And this evidence comes from a convicted felon hoping to trade his knowledge for shortened prison time --- a man who Salt herself put behind bars. In a search that will take her into the depths of Atlanta’s buried wounds, Salt probes her way toward the truth in a case that has more at stake than she ever could have imagined.