England 1959. In a small East Anglian town, Florence Green decides, against polite but ruthless local opposition, to open a bookshop.

Nine years after Jesse and Celine first met, they encounter each other again on the French leg of Jesse's book tour.

Popular and dashing American singer Nick Rivers travels to East Germany to perform in a music festival. When he loses his heart to the gorgeous Hillary Flammond, he finds himself caught up in an underground resistance movement. Rivers joins forces with Agent Cedric and Flammond to attempt the rescue of her father, Dr. Paul, from the Germans, who have captured the scientist in hopes of coercing him into building a new naval mine.

Advice columnist, Dan Burns is an expert on relationships, but somehow struggles to succeed as a brother, a son and a single parent to three precocious daughters. Things get even more complicated when Dan finds out that the woman he falls in love with is actually his brother's new girlfriend.

On the spur of the moment, twenty-eight year old Manhattan self-made multi-billionaire Eric Packer decides he wants to get a haircut from his regular and longtime barber across town, a difficult journey today if only because of the traffic gridlock from three high profile but vastly different events taking place in the borough, including a wandering anarchist protest, they who largely use dead rats as their symbol of protest. Through his trek, Eric, most taking place in his stretch limousine, meets with several business associates - some with as esoteric job titles as Head of Theory - and personal acquaintances, including his several week bride, Elise, a wealthy woman in her own right with who he still has a somewhat distant relationship if only because they don't really know each other. The start of Eric's day ends much differently than the end as his personal fortune largely hinges on external forces in relation to a speculative currency transaction, and as he learns that someone is trying to kill him, who and for what reason he does not know.