A man whose life has smiled, decides to leave everything. He abandoned his house, his car and offered astonished passers-by his possessions and his freedom of action. By freeing himself from all constraints, he hopes to become a philosopher.
Professor James Murray begins work compiling words for the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary in the mid 19th century, and receives over 10,000 entries from a patient at Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum, Dr. William Minor.
Ira is 27 years old. And from the point of view of her mother, the director of the school, Ira lives absolutely wrong: she plays in the troupe of a small theater, earns money by washing windows and is in love with an unreliable creative person Leo, an aspiring director. She ignores "normal" men and does not even want to dye her hair blonde, which, according to her mother, is an easy way to success in her personal life. This state of affairs could continue for a long time, but the theater is on the verge of closing, and Lev suddenly disappears.
Markus returns home to care for his daughter when his wife dies in a tragic train accident. However, when a survivor of the wreck surfaces and claims foul play, Markus suspects his wife was murdered and embarks on a mission to find those responsible.
Amruta's father struggles to find a suitable match for her due to an astrological flaw in her zodiac. When she finally gets married, the groom steals her jewellery and abandons her on the first night.
A young girl, from a civilization that resides in deep underground tunnels, finds herself trapped in an inverted world and teams up with a resident to escape and return home.
Congotanga, West Africa, has no extradition laws; the government is controlled by foreign gangsters, headed by Carl Rittner. The latest plane from Europe carries lovely Louise Whitman, fleeing a French murder charge, and Mannering, who pays resident hit man O'Connell to kill her. Through a chain of circumstances Louise, O'Connell, and heroic surveyor David Carr end up alone in the jungle on Carr's mission to determine the true border of Congotanga... in which Rittner is keenly interested.
On New Year's night, Sandro suffers a heart attack and needs to have an emergency transplant. He ends up receiving the heart of Isadora, a transvestite owner of a beauty salon who had died a few moments before, victim of a runover. After the transplant, Isadora, in spirit, starts to follow the publicist's steps. Meanwhile, Sandro begins to notice changes in his behavior and begins to see the world in a different way.
Evading the police, Issa and her brother Tomas seek shelter in a secluded orphanage in the forest. But the siblings’ safe haven soon reveals itself to be a hellscape controlled by a sacrificial cult in thrall to a fearsome nocturnal deity.
In 1855 a wounded solider returns from the Crimean War and is given the chance of new life in Van Diemen's Land but in exchange he must track down a murderous gang of thieves across the desolate Cornish moors.
New York City, 1957. Lionel Essrog, a private detective living with Tourette syndrome, tries to solve the murder of his mentor and best friend, armed only with vague clues and the strength of his obsessive mind.
Two stories are included in this erotic/romantic anthology. In the first, a Sung-Dynasty (10th-13th century) Buddhist monk is tricked into sexual relations with an unscrupulous female adventurer. He dies soon after with his misdeed on his conscience. In the second, the daughter of a woman who died in a brothel discovers that her mother died an unnatural death and seeks revenge.
The true story of the kidnapping of Freddy Heineken, the grandson of the founder of the Heineken brewery, and his driver. They were released after a ransom of 35 million Dutch guilders was paid.