David Hayes
Mary Townley
Chubby
Numbskull
Vi
As a boy, Raoul is reared by an Arab tribe in Algerian Sahara. Years later, as a refined Europeanized gentleman, he falls in love with Barbara, an officer's daughter, who rejects him when she discovers his background. Affecting a raid, he captures her and then secretly buys her at a slave auction. When she is rescued by French troops, however, his ancestry is established and they find happiness together.
Because he can't accompany his father, a German army officer, on his next deployment in Somalia, 15-year-old Tim has to move in with his grandmother on the North Sea island of Amrum. There, the cool skater from Berlin, who seems to magically attract problems, immediately loses his reputation as a freak and difficult outsider. Only chubby Eric, who suffers teasing and attacks from the surfer clique around rich Lars, stands by him. When Tim also falls in love with pretty Vic, Lars' girlfriend, a fight is inevitable.
Naples. Present day. Giovanna, a combative 60-year-old social worker on the frontline of the daily war against pervasive criminality, is confronted, like a modern Antigone, with a moral dilemma that threatens to destroy her work and her life. Giovanna runs an after-school centre that takes care of underprivileged children; a grassroots alternative to the mafia dominance of the city. But one day, young Maria, wife of a ruthless Camorra criminal on the run, and her two children take refuge at the centre, and ask Giovanna for protection.
Geological expert John Leighton naïvely introduces his flirtatious wife Emily to his boss, W. G. Griggs. Griggs sends John to the Graypeak district to prospect for quarries and is soon involved in an affair with Emily. While in the mountains, John rescues Enid Arden from an attack and she falls in love with him. Returning home John discovers the affair and leaves Emily. Emily and Griggs go to Europe to avoid a scandal and while there start divorce proceedings. But Griggs’ philandering ultimately costs him his life and Emily tracks John to Graypeak. Although she tries to win John back a fateful train ride clears the way for John and Enid to face a happy future together.
Chrissey Desselden is the ward of John Warburton and has promised to marry him though she is drawn to the roguish Robert Neyland. When Robert’s caddish behavior becomes too flagrant, she marries John despite still feeling a pull towards the bad boy. Conflicted, she asks her husband for time to sort out her feelings but when she discovers Neyland’s plot to destroy John’s fortune for spite she spurns him and settles into a happy marriage.
