The year is 1923 and a viciously ingenious maniac is leaving a trailof corpses across New York City. It isn't ling before ace crime reporter Damon Runyan begins to see a strange pattern emerging from these apparently random slayings -each murder uncannily recreates the gruesome denouement of an Edgar Allan Poe short story. Arthur Conan doyle, in New York on a lecture tour, cannot resist the challenge of solving the murders, assisted by his friend and fellow debunker of fake spiritualists Harry Houdini. But unknown to Conan Doyle, Houdini has fallen under the spell of a mysterious and compelling beautiful widow who claims to be the incarnation of the goddess Isis. As the bodies mount up ever more horribly and the spirit of Poe himself seems to be abroad, can the two friends unravel the deadly mix of illusion and reality before Houdini himself becomes the final victim of this bizarre madness.