The book's appealing hero, Carl Granville, is a young, aspiring novelist who had gone to New York with a draft of his first novel. When Carl accepts the offer, a strange courier arrives at his apartment each morning with pages from a poorly written diary. Carl's job is to immediately transcribe the diary, converting it into a novel. Each night, the courier takes the diary and Carl's transcription, returning the following morning with additional material. The title of the novel is to be Gideon .
Disparate incidents abound.
Somewhere in a small town in Alabama, a serial murderer kills a mother and daughter. Finally, he confesses to a priest. Shaken by the confession, the priest vanishes, surfacing at a retreat in North Carolina where he asks for asylum. Then, Carl's mysterious editor is murdered. When Carl visits the publishing house, no one knows who he is.