In 1927, a Kansas City, Missouri cornet player and his band perform nightly at a seedy speakeasy until a racketeer tries to extort them in exchange for protection.
Three convicts escape from prison on Devil's Island just before Christmas and arrive at a nearby French colonial town. They go to the store of the Ducotels, the only store that gives supplies on credit. They initially intend to take advantage of them but have a change of heart after they find the family is in financial troubles.
Special investigator Duke Martin is in London to investigate the authenticity of a rare postage stamp called the Barbados Overplate. Someone is willing to commit murder to get his or her hands on the stamp, which puts a crimp in Duke's efforts to romance every beautiful woman he meets.
Crime writer Andrew Dax and his gorgeous wife Kate go on holiday to a country cottage, where they receive an unexpected visitor, the bossy Miss Tulip, who needs shelter for the night. In the morning, there's a dead body in the house.
Richard Dadier is a teacher at North Manual High School, an inner-city school where many of the pupils frequently engage in anti-social behavior. Dadier makes various attempts to engage the students' interest in education, challenging both the school staff and the pupils. He is subjected to violence as well as duplicitous schemes.
Story follows the rise and subsequent fall of the notorious head of a New York crime family, who decides to testify against his pals in order to avoid being killed by his fellow cohorts.
Police Lt. Leonard Diamond vies to bring a clever, well connected, and sadistic gangster to justice all the while obsessing over the gangster's girlfriend.
Vacationing at a resort hotel in Spain, a man discovers he is the only one not mixed up one way or another in murder, drugs and microfilm smuggling. But, the police are after him!
The tranquility of a small town is marred only by sheriff Tod Shaw's unsuccessful courtship of widow Ellen Benson, a pacifist who can't abide guns and those who use them. But violence descends on Ellen's household willy-nilly when the U.S. President passes through town... and slightly psycho hired assassin John Baron finds the Benson home ideal for an ambush.
When several women are found mutilated and murdered, the Paris police are baffled as to who the killer may be. All evidence points to Dupin, but soon it becomes apparent that it is someone (or something) stronger and deadlier than a human.
A US intelligence officer, stationed in Germany, is caught in a political dilemma when the Russians kidnap a young Army private, the son of prominent American businessman. In exchange for the soldier's return, the Russians attempt to barter a trade for an elderly German couple who they want for treason.