Boston, 1870. When James Osgood receives word that literary master Charles Dickens has passed, he sends his clerk Daniel Sand to retrieve the author's final, yet unfinished novel with hopes that the book will resuscitate his failing publishing company, Fields & Osgood. However, when Sand turns up dead with the manuscript missing, Osgood, along with Sand's older sister Rebecca, travel to England to capture the killer and fetch Dickens' elusive novel.