St. Petersburg, 1860. A member of the Imperial family is assassinated. A few days later the writer Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky meets Gusiev, a young man being treated in a psychiatric hospital. Gusiev confesses that he is part of the terrorist group involved in the assassination and reveals that his comrades are planning to kill another of the Tsar’s relatives. The young man also gives Dostoevsky the address of Aleksandra, their leader. Dostoevsky must find her and try and convince her to stop this new attack. The writer is at his wits end, hounded by his creditors, under pressure to deliver his next book and plagued by frequent attacks of epilepsy. By day, with the help of Anna Grigoryevna, a young stenographer, he dictates “The Gambler”. At night he continues his desperate search for the terrorist group...