In Ottoman-occupied Montenegro, young doctor Vanko Winczlav is one of the leaders of a popular uprising. Betrayed, wanted by the authorities, he flees the Balkans for the United States in the company of a Bulgarian refugee, Veska, whom he marries to allow her to enter New York legally. So begins the history of a family closely entwined with that of a still new country going through many transformations.

Joaquin is an ambitious young casino worker in Havana during the final days before Fidel Castro's coup to overthrow the corrupt Cuban government. Against this tense political backdrop, Joaquin finds himself holding a briefcase full of cash belonging to his gangster boss, stolen by Joaquin's own brother, a guerrilla working for the revolution. When he learns that a young woman he has taken a liking to will be prostituted by his boss to none other than President Batista, he convinces her to ...

When unassuming candy store owner Ike Hopper dies of a heart attack, he leaves behind a bombshell that rocks his small Australian town. His confession of guilt to a 27-year old murder—the savage stabbing of local girl Lee Duncan—brings his brother Greg, accused of the crime, out of the bush where he's been hiding. But Greg, returning to his hometown of Dubbo to tie up loose ends, finds not all ghosts go quietly to the grave. For instance, he seems to see his ex-wife Lee taunting him wherev...

It's 1943 and all-American Joe is heading off to fight the Japanese. His distraught fiancé Dottie Partington is fired from her job as a movie usher, and a friend helps her find employment at the Yoyo Club, a cabaret favored by soon-to-be-deployed US Air Force personnel. In the meantime, Joe is marooned on an atoll in the South Pacific, where he experiences firsthand the terror of war, and encounters a motley crew of fictional and real-life characters. Back in the States, famed cartoonist M...

Arizona, 1948. Novelist François Combe has taken up residence with his wife, his son, and his mistress in the strange no man's land of the Santa Cruz Valley. His imagination is sparked by the surrounding desert, its ghost towns, and other vestiges of the pioneer past. The present, too, draws him in, especially in the border town of Nogales, where luxury and lust come together against a backdrop of misery and servitude... and where games of the flesh are paid for in blood. Sometimes the gra...

Philippe Martin, a Paris cop, is called to Barcelona to look into the suspicious suicide of a girl who might be his daughter. Barcelona is a charged place for Martin—he's been visiting every summer for the 25 years since the girl's mother left him and fled there. His investigations lead him into a labyrinth of criminal activity stretching from the most violent depths of Barcelona's society to its wealthiest families. Taunted by a particularly vicious and wily opponent, the stakes of Martin...

Lisa Forsberg is a rookie cop who has just taken her first assignment in the small Swedish city where she was born. In her youth she was a troublemaker, part of a hard-living subculture called "raggare" who worship American rock'n'roll and vintage cars from the 1950s. Now Lisa finds herself thrown back into this world when she is sent to investigate a missing person report involving people she went to school with. She and her partner, Erik Lund, will uncover secrets that put them in harm's...

1910, Oklahoma. Thomas Winczlav, Milan’s son, sees his life turned upside down when he learns he is the heir to the O’Casey distilleries – a colossal fortune he’ll have to share with his twin sister Lisa, who lives in France. As the First World War begins, a sometimes naïve, often flighty Tom will do his best to run his new business; meanwhile, the aviation-obsessed Lisa will carve herself a place in the skies of Europe, dominated by a certain Red Baron …

Set against the backdrop of the Cuban Revolution, the second part of this hard-boiled tale transforms into a road movie as Joaquin and Livia head across the U.S. in a Buick Century bought with stolen mafia money. Joaquin's ex-boss, Santo Trafficante Junior, is hot on their tail, and is counting on soon having the money and Livia back in Cuba. Things boil over when the runaways reach California, where Joaquin finds himself face-to-face with Livia, the money, and Trafficante's most relentles...

1965. The growing financial empire of the Winch family is now in the hands of Nerio, Tom’s young son. And Nerio, who stands barely above five feet, whose schoolmates always despised because his only friend was the son of his African-American nanny, whom women never so much as looked at … thirsts for power. Meanwhile, back in a Montenegro now under the boot of Yugoslav dictator Tito, is born little Danitza, great-great-grand-niece to one Vanko Winczlav …

President Truman drops two atomic bombs on Japan, and Dottie cuts ties with Milton and begins posing for lowlife cheesecake photographer, Irving Klaw. In the meantime, a shadowy figure with a vendetta against ex-Yoyo Club girls persists in evading police. While Colonel Eigrutel shows a marked interest in Talullah, Milton tries to track the increasingly bitter Dottie down, and a war-injured Joe wastes away in a squat for the homeless. Everything comes to a head one dark night in the New Yor...

Let the games begin! Fired from gangster Gus Greenbaum's casino, Dottie is now working for Hugh Hefner, owner of the Playboy empire of a thousand women. The company's cardinal rule: "Your most precious possession is your little cotton tail. You must always be sure to keep it fluffy and white." Of course a slew of wrongdoers want Hefner's skin, in particular a nasty fellow who doesn't hesitate to go to extreme lengths to achieve his malicious ends. Hefner's very survival will depend on none...