Rich Hazzard receives an unusual invitation to tea, accompanied by a photo of a woman whose throat has been cut. A perfumed note reads, If the photo interests you, please call on me at this address — CARA SHEARS.

At the address on Sunset Boulevard, a mute servant ushers him into a dimly-lit suite where portraits of a stunningly beautiful girl cover a gallery wall. The girl is Cara Shears, a silent film actress who abandoned Hollywood for Berlin and German films in 1933. Hiding from view behind a silk partition, she tells him she's dying from cancer and wants him to write her story.

In a series of taped dialogues, Hazzard never sees her face on the other side of the silk portiere and is left to wonder if the person talking to him really is the one time film actress. What he doesn't know is that he's being set up as the final victim in a complex scenario of serial murder that traces back to Hitler's Third Reich.