Plot
In the Winter of 1907 children are going missing from the poorest part of Gotham, known as "the Devil's Workshop". The culprit is a grinning white-faced ghoul named Jack Schadenfreude.
Meanwhile, Harry Houdini is in town for a performance and mingles with Gotham's elite. Amongst them is Bruce Wayne, from an Old Money background, and Elijah Montenegro, the nouveau riche, self-styled "Beef Baron". Also in town are other notables, specifically Tom Mix and Leonora Reinhardt. All the high society events are being documented for the "Gotham Globe" by Victoria Vale.
Vale and Wayne attend Reinhardt’s performance as the lead in Medea, where they meet the Baron again. They are then invited to a séance to be held by Reinhardt. An invitation also extended to Houdini, who has an interest in the paranormal. The séance is apparently a success, leading the three to conclude something genuinely supernatural is going on.
The abductions are traced to Montenegro’s meat factory and it soon becomes apparent that everything is somehow connected.
The story is narrated by Houdini. He contrasts his own poor upbringing with that of Bruce Wayne. It also highlights Batman's comparatively poor lock picking and escapological skills, as he learned a number of his skills from studying Houdini's work.
Read more about this topic: Batman/Houdini: The Devil's Workshop
Famous quotes containing the word plot:
“Morality for the novelist is expressed not so much in the choice of subject matter as in the plot of the narrative, which is perhaps why in our morally bewildered time novelists have often been timid about plot.”
—Jane Rule (b. 1931)
“We have defined a story as a narrative of events arranged in their time-sequence. A plot is also a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality. “The king died and then the queen died” is a story. “The king died, and then the queen died of grief” is a plot. The time sequence is preserved, but the sense of causality overshadows it.”
—E.M. (Edward Morgan)
“Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)