A. J. Niles is the author of a series of 'Bachelor Books'. These books describe the romantic life of a bachelor in various cities of the world. But when he runs into trouble with the I.R.S. for back taxes, he needs to write another book fast, to pay them. His publisher decides a book about life in the American suburbs would be a hit and settles him into Paradise Village. One bachelor plus lonely housewives equals many angry husbands.
In 19th century England, a noted brain surgeon rescues a former student from being hanged on a false conviction for murder, and spirits him away to an ancient, repurposed abbey far in the countryside. There, he connives his pupil into assisting him in mapping the functions of the various parts of the human brain, using living subjects who are under a terrible animation-suspending drug called "black sleep". Subsequently, the student, along with the daughter of one of the subjects, discover that most of these subjects have survived but are being kept in a dungeon-like cellar, in various stages of physical and mental derangement...
Whitney Cameron is in a quandary: he's attracted to his beautiful sister-in-law, Lynn, but also harbors serious suspicions about her. Her husband, Cameron's brother, died under mysterious circumstances, and now that the death of her stepchild, Polly, has been attributed to poisoning, he suspects that Lynn is after his late brother's estate, and killing everyone in her way.
Mobster Nick Scanlon has managed to buy several of the local government and law-enforcement officials. However, he can't seem to touch the incorruptible police captain Tom McQuigg, who refuses all attempts at bribery. Prosecuting attorney, Welch, and a police detective, Turck, are crooked and make McQuigg's job as an honest officer nearly impossible.
