Estranged fraternal twins Allen and Allie Foster are reunited by their mother's death, and return to their strange hometown of Obelisk Bay to attend to her lingering matters. Allen, struggling to resolve his latest novel, is enticed by Allie to take a powerful psychotropic drug she calls "the lotus." As if a muse were speaking through him, Allen begins recounting the winding story of a young woman's travels decades earlier. Her life in some ways parallels their own, as she journeys into the desert in search of a statue her own deceased mother left her with an old photograph of. The two lives begin to cross over in unexpected ways, and it becomes apparent that a dark secret at the heart of their old home has far broader ramifications than they could have possibly imagined.

Genetics professor Adam Slope clones his wife Dawn after she dies in a fire but the woman he creates is different than the woman he loved, so he tries over and over, in a desperate attempt to get her back exactly as she was.

Private detective is hired by rich man to find his niece, who has disappeared while traveling in Europe.

An American jewel thief in Monaco encounters various characters while trying to set up a robbery.

To stop the Third Reich and the Nazi war machine from winning World War II and affecting the outcome of the free world, Toulon's indestructible puppets join forces with the masters of psychic powers.

A party turns into a revenge story.