Brutal heat, brutal racism, brutal, corrupt cops: welcome to Atlanta in the summer of 1948. The powers that be have decided to experiment with the first-ever contingent of black policemen: eight rookies burdened by the expectation that they must be paragons of their race, while hampered by ridiculous Jim Crow rules, and harassed by their white colleagues. Black officers are not permitted to conduct investigations, wear their uniforms to or from work, drive a squad car, or even set foot in police headquarters—their station is in the basement of a YMCA, and they patrol only rundown, predominantly black neighborhoods.

WWII veterans Lucius Boggs, the privileged, college-educated son of a prominent preacher, and Tommy Smith, his partner from a rural background, stumble upon the murdered body of a pretty young black maid dumped in a garbage heap. She was last seen alive in the company of a white man with police department connections. Realizing that the establishment won’t bother to look for the killer of a “colored Jane Doe,” Boggs and Smith begin a clandestine investigation, in spite of the risks to themselves and to others. They find an uneasy ally in Denny Rakestraw, a white rookie slightly less racist than most, who is appalled by the brutality and corruption of his older partner, Lionel Denlow. The white and black officers can’t openly work together, and don’t know how far they can trust one another.

The tense atmosphere of the postwar, pre-civil rights South is darkly, but authentically and vividly portrayed in this morally ambiguous tale of flawed and ambivalent men thrust into danger, and sometimes heroism, under violent circumstances. The intricate plot keeps the reader guessing as those at the highest—and lowest—levels of society are implicated and involved. With issues of race and policing on the front pages today, this finely crafted novel is timely, thought-provoking, and hard to put down.