John Cusack stars in this period crime thriller as Gothic writer Edgar Allen Poe. When a string of murders takes place across 19th-century Baltimore, detective Emmett Fields (Luke Evans) realises that the crimes closely resemble the fictional murders published weekly in the local newspaper by struggling writer and social misfit Edgar Allan Poe. Suspecting that the serial killer is using Poe's writings as direct inspiration for his grisly work, Fields approaches the author to ask for his help with snaring the killer. The stakes are soon raised even higher when someone close to Poe comes under threat. Can he draw on his impressive powers of logic and imagination to solve the puzzle before it is too late?