Proxate Corporation recruits a boozy former ship captain and offers him a new identity: Sean Murdoch. His job: to take charge of large ship on one voyage. Once aboard, Murdoch realizes that the ship is a prison ship, and the cargo are criminally insane inmates. Murdoch's other problem: someone has planted bombs aboard the vessel. Murdoch's acrimonious relationship with the prison warden lends extra drama to the story.

Harry Palmer heads a private investigation business based in Moscow. His associates are Nikolai "Nick" Petrov, ex-CIA agent Craig, and ex-KGB Colonel Gradsky. They take on the job of finding 1000 grams of weapons-grade plutonium stolen from the Russian government, though they do not know the identity of their client.

An English widow goes to Italy, falls in love with a dentist's son and marries him, against her straitlaced family's wishes.