Philadelphia, early 1844. As violent tensions escalate between `nativists' and recent Irish immigrants, Edgar Allan Poe's fears for the safety of his wife Virginia and mother-in-law Muddy are compounded when he receives a parcel of mummified bird parts. Could his nemesis have returned to settle an old score?
Just as odd is the arrival of Helena Loddiges, a young heiress who demands Poe's help to discover why her lover died at the city's docks on his return from an expedition to Peru. Poe is sceptical of her claims to receive messages from birds and visitations from her lover's ghost. But when Miss Loddiges is kidnapped, he and his friend C. Auguste Dupin must unravel a mystery involving old enemies, lost soulmates, ornithomancy, and the legendary jewel of Peru.