The Dream Walker

 

By Charlotte Armstrong

Early 1950s, in the depths of the Red Scare in the United States, what better revenge is there than to frame an upright and respected man by smearing him as a part of the Communist conspiracy? This is the idea Ray Pankerman came up with to pay back John Marcus for exposing Pankerman's financial ties to the Communist Party. He enlists three other people in the plot: Kent Shaw who is in it for the money and for the thrills, Cora Steffani, two-bit actor who is in desperate need of cash, and Darlene Hite who is under the mistaken belief that she is performing in a publicity stunt.

Cora assembles her "audience" and goes through her act, going into a trance and waking up and relating a strange dream where she is walking on a beach and encounters a famous person and they briefly talk. The person, Josephine Crain, a successful and respected performer, verifies that she was approached on the beach by a woman who looked like Cora.

Cora pulls her act several times, each time going into her trance and waking to recite her story of approaching some respectable and well known person and while at the same time being in her apartment in New York City, each incident verified, with qualifications, by the other persons.

Of course, it is a scam. The dream walker is a woman who resembles Cora, Darlene Hite. It is all orchestrated by Kent Shaw, with codes and secret signals. Cora's best friend, Olivia Hudson, can't understand why her friend is pulling what she is positive is a scam. 

Then someone turns up dead, someone connected to Darlene. And now the four plotters know they are in too deep to turn back.

This is not a tale of the supernatural. The "dream walking" is a scam to frame an innocent man. It all blows up in the plotters faces when one of them takes it too far and murders a witness. But it is quite intriguing to watch the plotters carry out their scam and fool the police and the press and, in Cora's place, her closest friends as to how they are doing it. Plus there is also a rather soapy love story included. An enjoyable read.