Set in Boston in the year 1865, the Dante Club, a small group of literary genuises, prepares the final work on America's first translation of the Divine Comedy. Their plans come to an abrupt halt, however, when a series of murders occur in a form adopted from Dante's Inferno and its unique account of punishment in Hell. With lives endangered and Dante's literary future at stake, the Dante Club must shed its reclusive existence so the killer may be caught.