While traveling alone from Richmond, Virginia, to New York City, Poe disappeared for nearly a week. When seen again he was terribly drunk and nearly dead in Baltimore. In the hospital, four days later, after periods of raving delirium, he died. The immediate cause of death given was "congestion of the brain." At first no one seriously doubted that Poe died from drunken debauchery. However, Poe adherents suggested many theories of a physical nature about precipitating causes but no one has seroiusly probed the mystery of the missing week . . . until now.

On August 29, 1857, in the light of a three-quarter moon, James Metzger was savagely beaten by two assailants in a grove not far from his home. Two days later he died and his assailants, James Norris and William Armstrong, were arrested and charged with his murder. Norris was tried and convicted first. As William "Duff" Armstrong waited for his trial, his own father died. James Armstrong's deathbed wish was that Duff's mother, Hannah, engage the best lawyer possible to defend Duff. The best person Hannah could think of was a friend, a young lawyer from Springfield by the name of Abraham...