The Devil arrives in 1930s Moscow as Professor Woland, a visiting expert in black magic, with a retinue that includes a huge talking black cat named Behemoth, and turns the city's literary bureaucrats and profiteers upside down. Alongside runs the story of Pontius Pilate and his trial of Yeshua, bound up with the Master, a persecuted novelist, and Margarita, the lover who will deal with the Devil to save him.