 A mystery novelist sends a series of weird audiotapes to his publisher. On the first tape, the author (James Mason, Humbert Humbert in "Lolita") boasts that the publisher won t be able to discern if the story he narrates is the history of an imminent murder - or a mere fantasy. The author tells of his brief marriage ending when his wife was killed after he lost control of their car. They were kissing, making up after an argument over his wife s staying out all night with a rich old man, the same evening the author was briefly with the man s alluring, young wife Janet (Angie Dickinson, "Police Woman"). Janet made a pass at the author, who immediately cut the evening short. The author says he fell into a severe depression, declined a needed brain operation, moved from France to San Francisco where he changed his name, then became a mystery writer. The tapes relate how the author eventually ran into Janet , and though she s still married, dived into an affair. When she and the author begin to plan her husband s murder, the publisher calls in another of his mystery novelists (Ed Nelson, "Peyton Place") to determine: are these tapes just an unorthodox pitch of a new novel - or the bizarre confession of a deranged killer?