Charles Algren, a once-popular American novelist, has arrived in Paris, France to reinvigorate both his health and ailing imagination. Not long after his arrival, though, the desperate author becomes the unwitting protagonist of a tale which seems bent on consuming him whole. It begins with the discovery of a strange book, and continues with the appearance of a mysterious woman glimpsed in a cafe, who lures Algren into an obsessive nightmare. Led from one arrondissment to another, as well as into the dark labyrinth beneath this City of Lights, the author is quick to realize that nothing is at all what it seems in this fantastical wonderland.