Sylvie’s sister, Persephone, was killed 16 years ago, yet her murder remains unsolved. In the present day, Sylvie returns home to care for her estranged mother, Annie, as she undergoes treatment for cancer. Their once-close bond dissolved in the weeks after their loss, making for an uncomfortable reunion all these years later. Worse, Persephone’s former boyfriend, Ben, is now a nurse at the cancer center where Annie is being treated. Sylvie has always believed Ben was responsible for the murder, though she also carries her own guilt about that night. As she navigates the complicated relationship with her mother, Sylvie begins to uncover the secrets that fill their house --- and what really happened the night Persephone died.

Rural Trinidad: a brick house on stilts surrounded by bush; a family, quietly surviving, just trying to live a decent life. Clyde, the father, works long, exhausting shifts at the petroleum plant in southern Trinidad; Joy, his wife, looks after the home. Their 13-year-old sons wake early every morning to travel to the capital, Port of Spain, for school. They are twins but nothing alike: Paul has always been considered odd, while Peter is widely believed to be a genius, destined for greatness. When Paul goes walking in the bush one afternoon and doesn't come home, Clyde is forced to go looking for him. As the hours turn to days, and Clyde begins to understand Paul’s fate, his world shatters --- leaving him faced with a decision no parent should ever have to make.

Sean Suh is done with killing. After serving three years in a psychiatric prison, he’s determined to stay away from temptation. But he can’t resist Annabelle, who alone can see past the monster to the man inside. Then Annabelle disappears. Sean is sure she’s been kidnapped --- he witnessed her being taken firsthand --- but the police are convinced that Sean himself is at the center of this crime. And he must admit, his illness has caused him to “lose time” before. What if there’s more to what happened than he’s able to remember? Though haunted by the fear that it might be better for Annabelle if he never finds her, Sean can’t bring himself to let go of her without a fight.

A woman is found murdered in her new apartment in the Nihonbashi area of Tokyo. Living a quiet life, with nothing remarkable in her past and no known enemies, this newcomer’s murder is as baffling as it is unlikely. Detective Kyochiro Kaga of the Tokyo Police Department is also a newcomer to the area. Assigned to the task force investigating the murder, Kaga interviews the various local people somehow connected to the victim. But the more he pulls on the loose threads of a simple life, the greater the number of potential suspects emerge. To prevent the murderer from eluding justice, Kaga must unravel all the secrets of the local residents, finding out the truth behind their interactions with the victim. Buried somewhere in the woman’s seemingly uncomplicated life is the one clue that will lead to the murderer.

Meet Stanley Huang: father, husband, ex-husband, man of unpredictable tastes and temper, aficionado of all-inclusive vacations and bargain luxury goods, newly diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. For years, Stanley has claimed that he’s worth a small fortune. But the time is now coming when the details of his estate will finally be revealed, and Stanley’s family is nervous. As his death approaches, the Huangs are faced with unexpected challenges that upend them and eventually lead them to discover what they value most.

As a young girl growing up in Brooklyn, Claire DeWitt (now a private investigator) and her two best friends, Tracy and Kelly, solved many cases together --- until the day Tracy vanished without a trace. Later, in her 20s, Claire is trying to get her PI license by taking on a cold case that has stumped the LAPD. Today, Claire is on her way to Las Vegas from San Francisco when she’s almost killed by a homicidal driver. In a haze of drugs and injuries, she struggles off the scene, determined to find her would-be killer’s identity --- but the list of people who would be happy to see her dead is not a short one. As these three narratives converge, some mysteries are solved and others continue to haunt.

Nine-year-old orphaned Dores is working in the kitchen of a sugar plantation in 1930s Brazil when in walks a girl who changes everything. Graça, the spoiled daughter of a wealthy sugar baron, is clever, well fed, pretty and thrillingly ill-behaved. Born to wildly different worlds, Dores and Graça quickly bond over music. One has a voice like a songbird; the other feels melodies in her soul and composes lyrics to match. Music will become their shared passion, the source of their partnership and their rivalry, and the only way out of the life to which each was born. But only one of the two is destined to be a star. Their intimate, volatile bond will determine each of their fortunes --- and haunt their memories.

Jane loses everything when her teenage daughter is killed in a senseless accident. Devastated, she manages to make one tiny stab at a new life: she moves from San Francisco to the seaside town of Half Moon Bay. Jane is inconsolable, and yet, as the months go by, she is able to cobble together some version of a job, of friends, of the possibility of peace. And then, children begin to disappear. And soon, Jane sees her own pain reflected in all the parents in the town. She wonders if she will be able to live through the aching loss, the fear all around her. And as the disappearances continue, she begins to see that what her neighbors are wondering: is it Jane herself who has unleashed the horror of loss?

It is 1985, and Yale Tishman is the development director for an art gallery in Chicago. As his career begins to flourish, the carnage of the AIDS epidemic grows around him. One by one, his friends are dying, and after his friend Nico's funeral, the virus circles closer and closer to Yale himself. Soon the only person he has left is Fiona, Nico's little sister. Thirty years later, Fiona is in Paris tracking down her estranged daughter who disappeared into a cult. While staying with an old friend, a famous photographer who documented the Chicago crisis, she finds herself finally grappling with the devastating ways AIDS affected her life and her relationship with her daughter. In these intertwining stories, Yale and Fiona struggle to find goodness in the midst of disaster.

Around midnight, three friends take their partying from bar to boat on a misty fall evening. Just as the weather deteriorates, one of them suddenly and confusingly goes overboard. Is it an accident? The result of an unwanted advance? His body disappears quickly, silently, into the dark water. The circumstances are murky, but what is clear is that the other two need to notify the authorities. Minutes become hours become days as they hesitate, caught up in their guilt and hope that their friend has somehow made it safely to shore. As valuable time passes, they find themselves deep in a moral morass with huge implications as they struggle to move forward and live with their dark secret.