Following the death of his mother, J finds himself living with his estranged family, under the watchful eye of his doting grandmother, Smurf, mother to the Cody boys. J quickly comes to believe that he is a player in this world. But, as he soon discovers, this world is far larger and more menacing than he could ever imagine. J finds himself at the center of a cold-blooded revenge plot that turns the family upside down.
Young Alisa is fed up with her life in Moscow, and moves to St. Petersburg. Her roommates in the collective flat are two junkies, Vel and her boyfriend Valera the Dead Man. First they fight, but soon the two women form a friendship. Together they even go after the Petersburg underworld when Dead Man is abducted because he can't pay his debts.
Infatuated with the idea of becoming rich, college student Jonathan Corliss secretly dates Dorothy Carlsson to gain the approval of her wealthy father. When Dorothy tells Jonathan that she is pregnant and that her father will deny her inheritance if he finds out, Jonathan murders her, but he stages her death as a suicide. As Jonathan works his way onto Mr. Carlsson's payroll, Dorothy's twin sister, Ellen, investigates the apparent suicide.
After a break-in at their house, a couple gets help from one of the cops that answered their call. He helps them install the security system, and begins dropping by on short notice and unofficial patrol, and spends a lot of time discussing the couple's problems with the wife. The husband begins wondering if they're getting too much help.
Enforcing the law within the notoriously rough Brownsville section of the city and especially within the Van Dyke housing projects is the NYPD's sixty-fifth precinct. Three police officers struggle with the sometimes fine line between right and wrong.
A very gentle middle-aged man is married, but when he falls in love with another woman, he decides that to divorce his wife would humiliate her too much – so instead he decides to kill her.
A charismatic New York City jeweler always on the lookout for the next big score makes a series of high-stakes bets that could lead to the windfall of a lifetime. Howard must perform a precarious high-wire act, balancing business, family, and encroaching adversaries on all sides in his relentless pursuit of the ultimate win.