Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens is something of a 19th century–style, Old West lawman living in modern times, whose unconventional enforcement of justice makes him a target of criminals as well as his U.S. Marshals Service bosses. As a result of his controversial but "justified" quick-draw shooting of a mob hit-man in Miami, Givens is re-assigned from Miami to Kentucky. The Lexington, Kentucky Marshals office's jurisdiction includes Harlan County (a hopelessly impoverished, backwoods coal-mining community in southeastern Kentucky), which Raylan hates, and thought he had escaped for good, in his youth.