Luisa “Lu” Brant is the newly elected --- and first female --- state’s attorney of Howard County, Maryland. She sees an opportunity to make her name by trying a mentally disturbed drifter accused of beating a woman to death. The case dredges up painful memories, reminding her family of the night when her brother, AJ, saved his best friend at the cost of another man’s life. Lu now wonders if the events of 1980 happened as she remembers them. What details might have been withheld when she was a child? The more she learns about the case, the more questions arise.