Heroin addict Mark Renton stumbles through bad ideas and sobriety attempts with his unreliable friends --Sick Boy, Begbie, Spud and Tommy. He also has an underage girlfriend, Diane, along for the ride. After cleaning up and moving from Edinburgh to London, Mark finds he can't escape the life he left behind as Begbie and Sick Boy come knocking.

A police reporter solves a murder case in Chicago, then moves on to St. Louis-but not voluntarily, since he has been kidnapped by the minions of the Windy City gang leader against whom he is scheduled to testify.

Danny Fisher, young delinquent, flunks out of high school. He quits his job as a busboy in a nightclub, and one night he gets the chance to perform. Success is imminent and the local crime boss Maxie Fields wants to hire him to perform at his night club The Blue Shade. Danny refuses, but Fields won't take no for an answer.

Laura Mansfield catches a glimpse of mob hit man Jackie Wales after he shoots her businessman father. At the police station, Laura identifies Jackie as the murderer, but the policeman in charge of the case, Lt. Brewster, lets him go, citing a lack of corroborating evidence. Outraged, Laura worms her way into the unsuspecting Jackie's heart, trying to snare him and mob-connected club owner Armitage in her trap.

Nightclub manager Darnell Wright is a perpetual playboy who is almost as devoted to his job as he is to the pursuit of beautiful women. After he sets his sights on the ultra-classy Brandi Web, he launches an all-out assault to win her heart. Ultimately, charm, lust and passion prevail, but Darnell learns the hard way that when you play, you pay. Brandi is much harder to get rid of than she was to get--especially when she realizes that she has a rival vying for Darnell's affection. When he finally decides to call it quits, Brandi becomes an obsessed femme fatale stalking the new love of her life.

Britt Reid, the heir to the largest newspaper fortune in Los Angeles, is a spoiled playboy who has been, thus far, happy to lead an aimless life. After his father dies, Britt meets Kato, a resourceful company employee. Realizing that they have the talent and resources to make something of their lives, Britt and Kato join forces as costumed crime-fighters to bring down the city's most-powerful criminal, Chudnofsky.

Ruth Ellis lives with her ten-year old son Andy next to a night club. One night she meets David Blakely, and they start a love affair. However, for David with his upper-class background, it is impossible to uphold the relationship. He breaks up with her, something which makes Ellis, obsessed by him, very upset.

Strippers in Manhattan are being stalked and murdered by a psycho. A hard-nosed police detective and a conflicted ex-boxer-turned-private-eye, hired by the strip club owners, set out to find him before he strikes again.

Rose Manning swears revenge for the unjust slaying of her father by Inspector McArthur. Five years later, as a nightclub hostess, she is sought by Chuck Gaines, secretly a bootlegger, but she centers her attentions on young Jimmy Carter, who, she learns, is the son of McArthur.

A former comic is on the run from the mob.

Harper is a cynical private eye in the best tradition of Bogart. He even has Bogie's Baby hiring him to find her missing husband, getting involved along the way with an assortment of unsavory characters and an illegal-alien smuggling ring.

A woman falls victim to a dominant mafia boss, who imprisons her and gives her one year to fall in love with him.