Joachim West is so unsuccessful as a writer that in order to escape his financial trouble, he stages his own disappearance. But only after sending his magnum opus--on which he had worked for the past 10 years--to his publisher. Assuming him dead, she sees the masterpiece as the perfect answer to a predicament: her star author, Fabian Remarque, is struck by writer's block. So she decides to publish Joachim's manuscript under Fabian's name.