When the Morton Street Slasher leaves the corpses of his victims on the tangled gaslit streets near San Francisco's Union Square, he marks each body with a playing card. Ambrose "Bitter" Bierce, the city's famed newspaperman, immediately blames the rash of murders on his sworn enemies, the Southern Pacific Railway magnates. Bierce and his young protege at the Hornet, Tom Redmond, set out to solve the case, uncovering conspiracy and corruption at every turn.