Film of Fear (Dramatic Reading)

The year is 1912. Ruth Morton is the most famous actress in the world, her face known to millions who have seen her in silent films. She has youth, beauty, wealth, and a career that seems unstoppable. Then the letters arrive. At first they seem laughable - the ravings of some obsessed fan. But the threats escalate. The stalker knows things no stranger could know. Soon Ruth realizes that someone is watching her every move, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. Enter Richard and Grace Duvall, a husband-and-wife detective team who specialize in cases the police cannot solve. As they dig into Ruth's life, they discover that everyone around the actress has secrets - the jealous co-star, the resentful brother, the spurned suitor, the ambitious assistant. Everyone seems to want something from Ruth Morton, and anyone could be capable of destroying her. This is an early stalker thriller, published decades before the genre had a name, and it features something remarkable: a female detective who is neither sidekick nor damsel. Grace Duvall matches her husband wit for wit and nerve for nerve. Kummer constructs a fiendishly clever puzzle where suspicion spreads like contagion and the solution is neither obvious nor comfortable. For readers who wonder where modern psychological thrillers came from, here is one answer, hiding in plain sight.