[2] Mullen was inspired to write Darktown after reading Where Peachtree Meets Sweet Auburn: A Saga of Race and Family by Gary Pomerantz.

[3] parallels between past and present "issues of race and police violence" drove Mullen to continue Darktown so he can remind readers "that nothing that is happening today is completely without precedent".

[4] Sweet Auburn allowed African-Americans to "acquire property and live comfortably in modest to wealthy homes".

[1] With the city's growing population, the Atlanta Police Department strove for "greater efficiency" by employing more policemen and establishing the Central Headquarters Building.

The novel begins when Boggs and Smith are patrolling in a predominantly African-American neighborhood when they witness a white man hit and knock over a lamppost and slowly flee the scene.

The pair, on foot, order the man to pull over and notice an African-American woman in a yellow dress with a bruise on her face in the passenger seat.

Officer Lionel Dunlow and his partner, Dennis "Rake" Rakestraw, show up as backup and let the man off without penalty.

While patrolling, Boggs and Smith find the dead body of the woman they had previously seen in Brian Underhill's vehicle.

Boggs calls to get information from records, and he discovers that Brian Underhill was fired from the police force in 1945.

Dunlow leaves the scene, but Rake stays behind and reveals to Boggs that Underhill's name was removed from the report he submitted on the murder of the woman in the yellow dress.

Boggs later receives a call from Toon, a writer at The Daily Times, who tells him that the woman in the yellow dress is believed to be the daughter of Otis Ellsworth, a farmer from a fictional town, Peacedale.

Boggs visits the Prescott's house and uncovers that Lily had left this job months ago.

After seeing Dunlow and Underhill enter a brothel called "Mama Dove's" in the African-American part of town, Rake decides to investigate.

When Rake arrives, he is sabotaged by ex-cops that reveal Underhill was part of the "Rust Division," a group that cleans up after murders and crimes committed by high profile individuals.

A very drunk Dunlow picks up Rake and takes him to his shed where he reveals that he had a child with Mama Dove, who was hit by a car and killed.

Smith and Boggs go to Peacedale to try and find answers about Lily's murder from her family; and the local officers run the pair out of town.

The moment he and Rakestraw respond to the call from Boggs and Smith, he is already familiar with Brian Underhill, though he conceals it.

Dennis "Rake" Rakestraw – A rookie officer of the Atlanta Police Department, husband, and father.

Rakestraw discourages his brother-in-law, Dale, from committing any crimes against the only black neighbor that had recently moved to their community.

Darktown quickly received high praise in literary reviews from respected sources such as The New York Times, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Washington Post, HuffPost, and The Economist.

The same year as publication, 2016, Jamie Foxx bought the rights to turn Darktown into a television series.

[6] The Economist says, "[Darktown] is a fine, unflinching example of the increasingly widespread use of crime fiction to explore social issues.

Marilyn Stasio of The New York Times commended the book for its "ferocious passion" and "incendiary image [that] ignites the next in this highly combustible procedural [...] that'll knock the wind out of you.

"[12] The Washington Post further emphasizes that the detail in which Mullen shows racism and corruption in the police force—and against African-Americans in general—is not to be understood as "excessive [...] because we are still living it today".

[12] Troutt also proclaims that the book "walk[s] a fine line between art that reminds us of horrors past and art that trades on them with pieces too unfinished to play with," and he concludes that, "Mullen is a wonderful architect of intersecting plotlines and unexpected answers [...] an author who cares about history and how it is being lived by his characters.

"[12] The Library Journal also reviewed the work, writing that "some readers may brace against the routine use of epithets, but fans of well-written literary thrillers will want this expert example".

[13] A major theme found in Darktown is police corruption, but Mullen also brings up other historical topics like the evolution of the Dixiecrats and "the war between moonshiners and legitimate distributors".

[11] Kirkus Reviews is more critical of the themes in Darktown, stating that while the book had a great subject, it tells a "larger story of postwar America in which some veterans came back victorious only to find they were fighting another kind of fascism on the homefront.

"[14] Kirkus Reviews suggests the book's "characters exist as signifiers of ideas rather than people" and that "a great historical subject deserves better than this by-the-numbers rendition".