Those We Thought We Knew

One night in 2019 in a North Carolina town, Deputy Ernie Allison arrests a Mississippi man whose car contains a gun, a white hood, and a notebook listing the names of prominent townspeople. When Ernie returns to the car later to retrieve the notebook, it’s gone. Meanwhile, Toya Gardner—art student, activist, and granddaughter of Vess Jones, a longtime Black resident—is in town for the summer, staying with her grandmother and researching her thesis at the local university, research that leads her to discover aspects of the town’s racial history that most residents willingly forget. After she paints the hands of a statue of a Confederate soldier red in protest, tensions flare. Following a rally, Toya is found murdered, and Detective Leah Green investigates, even as Sheriff Coggins investigates Ernie’s brutal beating by people in Klan robes. What they discover will throw the town’s grimmest secrets into high relief.