In England, a boxer is sentenced to death for a murder he does not seem to have committed.... Anthony Gethryn, who has just resigned from the police on the occasion of his marriage, has three days left to find the real killer.

The City of Hope is the place where left-behind artists subsist by scraping by. When one of them is accused of murder, all try to find the real culprit.

For fun and to dazzle his wife, the novelist Morgan steals a ring and gets rid of it in the costume jewelry section of a supermarket. Sophie buys the diamond, which forces the novelist to embark on crazy adventures to recover the jewel.

The story of two young sisters, one a somewhat demure musician who is in love with a scoundrel who's no good for her, and the other a wild, free spirit who is the object of a shy young carpenter's affections.