It stars Patrick Wilson, Jessica Biel, Vincent Kartheiser, Haley Bennett, and Eddie Marsan.

Walter Stackhouse is an architect by day and an aspiring writer of short-story crime fiction by night who is fascinated by the recent murder of a local woman.

Corby, the police detective investigating both deaths, suspects that the respective husbands are guilty of murder and that there is a connection between them.

Corby increases the pressure on the two suspects, successfully inciting Kimmel against Stackhouse by accusing the latter of being a copycat killer who will somehow incriminate him.

Stackhouse, lying on the ground wounded, gradually manages a smile as he contemplates the relationship between fiction and reality.

[19] Nick Schager of Variety wrote: "While thrills are mitigated by convoluted plotting and suspect character behavior, the film's uniquely bleak twist on classic noir conventions is enlivening.

"[20] John DeFore of The Hollywood Reporter called it "A handsome period piece that plays more like a scant-clues mystery than like the psychological thriller it intends to be.