Jealousy, suspicion and toxic love triangle plays out against a backdrop of three rapid dogs threatening a small Latvian town.
When a dead newborn is found, wrapped in bloody sheets, in the bedroom wastebasket of a young novitiate, psychiatrist Martha Livingston is called in to determine if the seemingly innocent novice, who knows nothing of sex or birth, is competent enough to stand trial for the murder of the baby. While searching for the answer that her supervisors want, Dr. Livingston finds herself inevitably drawn into searching for the truth about the baby's conception and death. Despite the lack of cooperation that she receives from her own organization and the church itself, she eventually discovers more than she may have bargained for.
Mike Locken is one of the principal members of a group of freelance spies. A significant portion of their work is for the C.I.A., and while he's on a case for them, one of his friends turns on him and shoots him in the elbow and knee. His assignment, to protect someone, goes down in flames. He is nearly crippled, but with braces is able to become mobile again. For revenge as much as anything else, Mike goes after his ex-friend.
Two soldiers of fortune, Harry Grigsby and Kip Thompson, used to be the best of friends when they fought side by side in the Congo. But now Kip has changed sides and Grigsby does not forgive him for what he regards as a betrayal, all the more as Thompson now turns his guns against Grigsby's troops and, accordingly, against his former friend. While he is London recovering from tuberculosis, Grigsby is assigned a new mission that he gladly accepts: to eliminate Thompson, now in Hong Kong causing tensions with neighboring China by creating border incidents.
Lil works for the Legendre Company and causes Bill to divorce Irene and marry her. She has an affair with businessman Gaerste and uses him to force society to pay attention to her. She has another affair with the chauffeur Albert.
In a misguided attempt to protect his family and pay back gambling debts to the local Mobster, Jimbo robs a fish market, which is coincidentally owned by the same Mobster. On the run, Jimbo is cornered in a local curio shop, where he takes hostage an assortment of colorful characters, including Maguire, who may be his illegitimate father. Surrounded by the Police, the SAS, and the Mobster's crew, the young man must find a way out of his precarious predicament with the help of his oddball captives.