Justin Quayle is a low-level British diplomat who has always gone about his work very quietly, not causing any problems. But after his radical wife Tessa is killed he becomes determined to find out why, thrusting himself into the middle of a very dangerous conspiracy.

Ari Ben Canaan, a passionate member of the Jewish paramilitary group Haganah, attempts to transport 600 Jewish refugees on a dangerous voyage from Cyprus to Palestine on a ship named the Exodus. He faces obstruction from British forces, who will not grant the ship passage to its destination.

Lorenzo Odone, a Virginia 5-year-old, develops a degenerative nerve disease so rare that nobody is working on a cure, so his parents decide to immerse themselves in research and tackle the problem themselves.

Jean-Dominique Bauby, editor-in-chief of French fashion bible Elle magazine, has a devastating stroke at age 43. The damage to his brain stem results in locked-in syndrome, with which he is almost completely paralyzed and only able to communicate by blinking an eye. Bauby painstakingly dictates his memoir via the only means of expression left to him.

While doing a friend a favor and searching for a runaway teenager, a police detective stumbles upon a bizarre band of criminals about to pull off a bank robbery.

After proving himself on the field of battle in the French and Indian War, Benjamin Martin wants nothing more to do with such things, preferring the simple life of a farmer. But when his son Gabriel enlists in the army to defend their new nation, America, against the British, Benjamin reluctantly returns to his old life to protect his son.

Jason, an American lawyer, poses as a john to build a legal case against a pimp trafficking girls to Bangkok. Can he win the trust of a young prostitute known only as Number 18 and convince her to risk her life to testify against her pimp?

In 1990 Chicago, a taxi driver recounts to his passenger, a sportswriter, his life story. He reveals himself to be Nat "Sweetwater" Clifton, one of the first African Americans to play in the NBA.

Two intertwined families, one American, one Mexican, and their fight to save three year old illegal Angelina from deportation.

Schoolteacher Bertram Cates is arrested for teaching his students Darwin's theory of evolution. The case receives national attention and one of the newspaper reporters, E.K. Hornbeck, arranges to bring in renowned defense attorney and atheist Henry Drummond to defend Cates. The prosecutor, Matthew Brady is a former presidential candidate, famous evangelist, and old adversary of Drummond.

Yuri Orlov is a globetrotting arms dealer and, through some of the deadliest war zones, he struggles to stay one step ahead of a relentless Interpol agent, his business rivals and even some of his customers who include many of the world's most notorious dictators. Finally, he must also face his own conscience.

In 1975, a woman reached the summit of Mount Everest: Junko, the first woman in history to reach the world's highest peak. Junko's unforgettable feat stunned the world, bringing her into the spotlight but casting a huge shadow over her friends and family. Despite being diagnosed with a terminal illness in her final years, Junko continued to challenge the mountains. What was the last thing she saw beyond the summit?