After two decades as a journalist in Hong Kong, ex-pat Englishman Adrian Gyle is ready to turn his back on the city he knew so well. But as Hong Kong erupts in violence with pro-democracy demonstrations hitting ever closer to home, could this be the final assignment Gyle was looking for? Watching from the skyrises is his old friend, Jimmy Tang, the scion of one of Hong Kong’s wealthiest families. Through him, Gyle uncovers an intriguing lead: the mysterious Rebecca, a student involved in the protests and the latest of Jimmy’s reckless dalliances. But when Rebecca goes missing and Jimmy hides, it rekindles in Gyle an old urge to investigate. Piecing together Rebecca’s final days and hours, Gyle must tread carefully through a volatile world of friendship and betrayal.

Escaping New York for the anonymity of Bangkok, Sarah Mullins arrives in Thailand on the lam with nothing more than a suitcase of purloined money. Her plan is to lie low and map out her next move in a high-end apartment complex called the Kingdom. It is not long before she meets the alluring Mali, a fellow tenant determined to bring the quiet American out of her shell. But as political chaos erupts on the streets below and attempted uprisings wrack the city, tensions tighten within the gilded compound. When the violence outside begins to invade the Kingdom in a series of strange disappearances, the residents are thrown into suspicion. Under the constant surveillance of the building’s watchful inhabitants, Sarah’s safe haven begins to feel like a snare.

The year is 1988. The place, Baja California. And Philip Marlowe  --- now in his 72nd year --- is living out his retirement in the terrace bar of the La Fonda hotel. Sipping margaritas, playing cards, his silver-tipped cane at the ready. When in saunter two men dressed like undertakers, with a case that has his name written all over it. For Marlowe, this is his last roll of the dice, his swan song. His mission is to investigate the death of Donald Zinn --- supposedly drowned off his yacht, and leaving behind a much younger and now very rich wife. But is Zinn actually alive? Are the pair living off the spoils?

On a hike during a white-hot summer break on the Greek island of Hydra, Naomi and Samantha make a startling discovery: a man named Faoud, sleeping heavily, exposed to the elements but still alive. Naomi, the daughter of a wealthy British art collector, convinces Sam, a younger American girl on vacation with her family, to help this stranger. As the two women learn more about the man, a migrant from Syria and a casualty of the crisis raging across the Aegean sea, their own burgeoning friendship intensifies. When a simple plan of revenge goes horrifically wrong, Faoud must go on the run while the girls come to terms with the terrible consequences they have set in motion.

Adrift in Cambodia and eager to side-step a life of quiet desperation as a small-town teacher, 28-year-old Englishman Robert Grieve decides to go missing. As he crosses the border from Thailand, he tests the threshold of a new future. And on that first night, a small windfall precipitates a chain of events --- involving a bag of “jinxed” money, a suave American, a trunk full of heroin, a hustler taxi driver, and a rich doctor’s daughter --- that changes Robert’s life forever.

Longing to escape their unhappy lives in London, David and Jo Henniger, a doctor and a children's book author, willingly accept the invitation to attend their old friends' weekend bacchanal in the Moroccan desert. On the way there, two young men spring at the Henniger's car, trying to interest passing drivers in fossils for sale. A panicked David swerves and kills one of the men. David's misdeed haunts their weekend getaway as the couple struggles to come to terms with their own deteriorating relationship.