Jack Harris

Chinatown, San Francisco, 1928. Former private detective Dashiell Hammett, a compulsive drinker with tuberculosis who writes pulp fiction for a living, receives an unexpected visit from an old friend asking for help.

An ethical Baltimore defense lawyer disgusted with rampant legal corruption is forced to defend a judge he despises in a rape trial under the threat of being disbarred.

A sarcastic near-sighted cartoonist, averse to commitment, falls for a single mother of three — the only woman who can stand his strong anti-feminist opinions.

The lives of a disparate group of unfulfilled people converge at a small, seaside English hotel.