Vienna is shaken by a mysterious series of murders. Except for Major Adolf Kottan, who is suspended. Indefinitely. Kottan's ex-police colleagues, the stiff-legged Paul Schremser and the trigger-happy Alfred Schrammel, take over the investigation and are completely in the dark. Next to each murder victim is a playing card with the inscription "Rien ne va plus". There are seven names on the back. Already three murders in 24 hours....

When a young couple in Vienna suddenly find themselves unemployed, they open a little restaurant near a local soccer place. Soon they have to find out about the odds and ends of self-employment as they have to learn that their newly won independence suffers from bureaucracy and greed.

Vienna before the First World War: Clarissa Schuhmeister grows up in the monastery. Strict discipline determines her life until she meets the Frenchman Léonard and falls in love with him. Just when she expects a child from him, the First World War tears the happy couple apart. Out of pragmatism, Clarissa marries Gottfried, a deserter, with whom she makes a painful yet realistic agreement so that he will not be sent back to war. But she never feels love for him because she can not forget Léonard.

Colonel Mortimer's son Gregory, his pride and joy, returns to the ancestral Cornish estate by the sea for the summer after loosing that year's only Horse Guards officer promotion to his neighbor-buddy Eric. By ancestral tradition, that means another delay too for his long-planned marriage with neighbor's daughter Rebecca, who already doubts if the are actually in love. Mortimer's new housekeeper Elisabeth proves irresistible for father (platonically) and son, but is held back by a family secret concerning her late mother Catherine. Eric also has a confession to make.

Journalist Carla is supposed to interview her estranged mother, a successful penny dreadful novelist. Suddenly she finds herself in a picturesque mountain village as Alpine baker Lilia LeClerk - a character from a novel.

Bernadette considers monogamy an outdated lifestyle. Therefore, she maintains simultaneous relationships with three pilots: Pierre, William, and Alexei, who, however, know nothing about each other. Since Bernadette chose them partly because of their different flight schedules, two of them are always in the air.