New York, 1896. Police commissioner Theodore Roosevelt brings together criminal psychologist Dr. Laszlo Kreizler, newspaper illustrator John Moore and secretary Sara Howard to investigate several murders of male prostitutes.

New York in the 1920s. Max Perkins, a literary editor is the first to sign such subsequent literary greats as Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald. When a sprawling, chaotic 1,000-page manuscript by an unknown writer falls into his hands, Perkins is convinced he has discovered a literary genius.