Sidney Young is a down-on-his-luck journalist. Thanks to a stint involving a pig and a glitzy awards ceremony, Sidney turns his fortunes around, attracting the attention of Clayton Harding, editor of New York-based glossy magazine 'Sharps', and landing the holy grail of journalism jobs. The Brit jets off to the Big Apple and moves from one blunder to the next.

As a 13-year-old, fledgling writer Briony Tallis irrevocably changes the course of several lives when she accuses her older sister's lover of a crime he did not commit.

A megalomaniac dictator, in charge of a former colony, installs a nuclear bomb in its London Embassy. He threatens to set it off, unless a huge ransom is paid. The question for the government is whether he will set it off anyway?