⚠️ content warning: crimes against children, murder, violence against animals (small scene)

Titus Crown is the first Black sheriff in the history of Charon County, Virginia. In recent decades, quiet Charon has had only two murders. Then a year after Titus’s election, a school teacher is killed by a former student and the student is fatally shot by Titus’s deputies. As Titus investigates the shootings, he unearths terrible crimes and a serial killer who has been hiding in plain sight. With the killer’s possible connections to a local church and the town’s harrowing history weighing on him, Titus also has to contend with a far-right group that wants to hold a parade in celebration of the town’s Confederate history while trying to solve the murders. Charon is Titus’s home. But where faith and violence meet, there will be a reckoning. 

Cosby has become an auto-buy author for me after this book. I absolutely loved Razorblade Tears and was excited for an other intense thriller. Cosby has a wonderful way of incorporating humanity alongside somber subject matters and I really appreciate the diligence with which he crafts his protagonists. Much like Razorblade Tears, this book also focuses on a protagonist trying to right a wrong, though this time on a much larger scale and in the capacity of a sheriff. This lent to a wonderfully complex character in Titus, who tries to follow the rules while also grappling with his own identity as a Black man and a law enforcement officer, which more often than not are in juxtaposition with each other. Set in a small town in Virginia where racism is very much still alive, the themes of learning from history and good versus evil/man’s true nature were especially poignant. The religious history driving the moral justifications of the town members and the ultimate serial killer set the finishing touches on the perfectly crafted thriller. Highly recommend this one, but definitely pay mind to content warnings.