Thomas Dennehy, senior prosecutor in Davidson County, Tennessee, doesn’t recognize Nashville anymore: a decade of relentless immigration means cops are learning Spanish, and the DA’s office is looking for Vietnamese translators. Thomas’s latest case is prosecuting Moses Bol, a Sudanese refugee who faces the death penalty for killing a white woman in the Nations, a notorious, racially charged part of town. Bol’s conviction seems certain, until a university professor claims Thomas has sent the wrong man to the death chamber in a previous case. The DA’s office is rocked to its core, but another blow falls within days: a beautiful and brilliant anti-death penalty activist mysteriously surfaces as Bol’s alibi.

Bol’s case becomes a lightning rod as protestors on all sides converge on Nashville, threatening to tear the city apart. Meanwhile, Bol’s alibi has secrets of her own – and is terrified of someone working behind the scenes to get what he wants – even if it means murder.