London, 1886: When a stranger with peculiar head injuries is admitted to Bethlem Asylum, the doctors are confounded by his permanent inability to recover his memory. Without any form of identity and suffering bizarre nightmares, the stranger soon finds out that he is somehow linked to a deceased nobleman who bequeaths him a farm in the Southern African Cape Colonies. After an attempt is made on his life by a clandestine order of assassins, he flees to Cape Town.

Before long, his presence in the Cape Colonies is questioned, even feared, for the farm he had inherited has a sinister reputation already. By association, he is quickly blamed for an outbreak of brutal serial murders of which his memory loss does not absolve him.

He meets Eleonora Rudd, daughter of De Beers magnate Charles Dunnell Rudd, and a reluctant romance ensues. Unfortunately, the corrupt Cape Town Police Chief and Eleonora's fiancé uses his influence to turn the Cape Town people against the stranger who introduces himself as Poe.

Apart from Eleonora and a local gravedigger called Rowlf as allies, Poe is pursued as suspect. But when Eleonora is taken by the killer, Poe and Rowlf are forced to unearth the malevolent nature of the man who lurks in Cape Town, killing women of all creeds with bestial cruelty.

In order to save his beloved, Poe races against time and evidence to track down her captor and hopefully find her still alive. But what they discover is something worse than the fate of death.