On June 9, 1865, Charles Dickens is returning to London with his mistress when their train goes off the tracks. Haunted by images of the dead and dying from the accident, Dickens becomes obsessed with the macabre and spends the last five years of his life wandering the slums and catacombs of London, staging gruesome readings, and writing what would be his final work, The mystery of Edwin Drood.