Sam Pulsifer spent ten years in prison for accidentally burning down poet Emily Dickinson's house--and unwittingly killing two people in the process. He emerged at age twenty-eight and set about creating a new life--almost a new identity--for himself. He went to college, found love, got married, fathered two children, and made a new start--and then watched as the vengeful past caught up with him. As, one by one, the homes of other famous New England writers are torched, Sam knows that this time he is most certainly not the guilty one. To prove his innocence, he sets out to uncover the identity of the literary-minded arsonist.