When a friendless old widow dies in the seaside town of Crythin, a young solicitor is sent by his firm to settle the estate. The lawyer finds the townspeople reluctant to talk about or go near the woman's dreary home and no one will explain or even acknowledge the menacing woman in black he keeps seeing. Ignoring the towns-people's cryptic warnings, he goes to the house where he discovers its horrible history and becomes ensnared in its even more horrible legacy.

Long-suffering Czech Pavel Zeman works six jobs, so his ungrateful wife Liba can buy designer shoes and clothes. Colin Frampton is an Englishman who never stops worrying, not even on holiday in Prague. When Colin's wife is accidentally squashed by a statue, he decides that he can't face life without her. So Colin bribes Pavel to help him die. An unlikely friendship develops as Pavel's plans for Colin's death spin out of control, attracting the violent interest of local gangster Karel Karlovic.

A pair of rivaling stage magicians are forced to confront their falling out over a guillotine mishap when they compete in a magic competition.

Brothers - older Stephen and three years junior Bloom - have been con artists since they were kids. Stephen is the mastermind, for who the intricacy of the story used in the con is as important as the positive outcome of the swindle. Bloom is the main character of Stephen's stories, the character he considers the anti-hero. As adults, they travel the world and never enlist the same people twice in their cons, except for their consistent sidekick, the mysterious and primarily silent Bang Bang, a Japanese woman who just appeared in their lives one day and who has a penchant for blowing things up. As Bloom hits his mid-thirties, he wants to quit the business as he is losing his own identity to that of the characters he portrays; he doesn't know anymore what is real and what is make-believe. Stephen talks him into one last con, the mark to be the eccentric, lonely but beautiful New Jersey heiress...

Jews rise up in the Warsaw Ghetto against the Nazis in 1943.

A team-building weekend in the mountains of Eastern Europe goes horribly wrong for the sales division of the multi-national weapons company Palisade Defence when they become the victims of a group of crazed killers who will stop at nothing to see them dead.