In 1889 New York, when the city's top models begin turning up dead, one by one, society girl-turned-investigative journalist Genevieve Stewart, drawn into the investigation by a friend, seeks answers from notorious gangsters and prominent painters to catch a killer.

Imagines the life story of Christina Olson, the subject of Andrew Wyeth's painting "Christina's World," describing the simple life she led on a remote Maine farm, her complicated relationship with her family, and the illness that incapacitated her.