If I Should Die Before I Wake

After being hired to find an ex-con's former girlfriend, Philip Marlowe is drawn into a deeply complex web of mystery and deceit.

It's 1975, and John Dykstra, a lowly college professor, with not much confidence but a semi-successful author, is on his way home from his monthly meet up group with fellow authors, when he decides to pull off to the nearest rest stop. What he encounters there is an unnerving domestic assault, that will force him to embrace his alter ego, Rick Hardin, the hitman in his novels, and finally decide what kind of man he wants to be.

Walter is HIV positive and is leading a promiscuis life in Rome. He does this so that he won’t infect his wife. Walter’s wife is also cheating on him. In a decidedly dull subplot, Walter’s father is a senator who wants to use his son’s illness to promote his own political career by calling for more AIDS research.

Fletcher tells his psychiatrist how he was mistakenly held captive by a mysterious secret service. This secret service is said to have tried to manipulate him in an elaborate power game to break his spirit. Fletcher's psychiatrist is suspicious of the story and tries to help Fletcher stay sane, because the truth is even more frightening.

Three separate short stories by Jan Drda from the collection The Dumb Barricade: The Dynamite Watchman, Hatred and Traces.

Marco and Anita discover they are expecting a child. Finally a ray of light in Marco’s life after his heartbreak following the loss of Leo, his first born with his former wife Clara. Suddenly, however Perla, the new owner where the couple lived until the tragic accident, bursts into Marco’s and his ex-wife’s lives. The mysterious woman claims she keeps feeling a strange presence and hearing the voice of a child that is tormenting her and her son. Marco therefore finds himself torn between the ties of the past and an unwritten future.

Even though Sam's father is hardly ever home because he is often away on business trips, he is able to connect with his son by teaching him how to pack a suitcase.

Born under unusual circumstances, Benjamin Button springs into being as an elderly man in a New Orleans nursing home and ages in reverse. Twelve years after his birth, he meets Daisy, a child who flits in and out of his life as she grows up to be a dancer. Though he has all sorts of unusual adventures over the course of his life, it is his relationship with Daisy, and the hope that they will come together at the right time, that drives Benjamin forward.

A mad bomber holds an innocent family hostage.

Bitter over their divorce, a wealthy businessman prevents his ex-wife from seeing their child. She then takes him to custody court and a judge tries to determine what will be best for the child.

A top-secret government weapons designer is arrested by a clandestine government organization on suspicion of being a clone created by the hostile alien race wanting to take over Earth.

Matys is an outsider who moved from Ukraine to Czechia with his sister in search of a better life. It turns out the situation there is not ideal either. A glimpse of hope comes when Matys manages to get a job in a cottage located in the heart of a splendid forest.

Outside the Australian town of Jindabyne, local man Stuart Kane is on a fishing trip with friends when they discover the body of a murdered girl.

A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind and water. It is cold enough to crack stones and, when the snow falls, it is gray. Their destination is the warmer south, although they don't know what, if anything, awaits them there.

Locked in her cell, a murderer reflects on the events that have led her to death row.

After being found wandering the streets of Los Angeles, a severely catatonic woman tells a doctor the complex story of how she wound up there.

Tells the story of one day in the lives of the various people who populate a police detective squad. An embittered cop, Det. Jim McLeod, leads a precinct of characters in their grim daily battle with the city's lowlife. The characters who pass through the precinct over the course of the day include a young petty embezzler, a pair of burglars, and a naive shoplifter.

Young Native American man Thomas is a nerd in his reservation, wearing oversize glasses and telling everyone stories no-one wants to hear. His parents died in a fire in 1976, and Thomas was saved by Arnold. Arnold soon left his family, and Victor hasn't seen his father for 10 years. When Victor hears Arnold has died, Thomas offers him funding for the trip to get Arnold's remains.

In a moment of madness a middle-aged, married and respectable pharmacist kills a young woman who is sun-bathing by a lake. Unable to take in what he has done, he flees from the scene of the crime and behaves as if nothing has happened. Eventually her boyfriend is charged with the crime and, in a strange twist of fate, the killer finds himself serving on the jury.

It is just another day in the small town of Hamlin until something disastrous happens. Suddenly, news breaks that a series of nuclear warheads has been dropped along the Eastern Seaboard and, more locally, in California. As people begin coping with the devastating aftermath of the attacks — many suffer radiation poisoning — the Wetherly family tries to survive.