When an impoverished man shows up to a wealthy woman's door in dire need of help, she gives him ten dollars and tries to send him on his way. The man insists that he return the next day to thank her husband for the money, but she isn't quite sure if things are as they seem.

On his morning hike, a fifty-five-year-old man in Indiana encounters a severely injured college-aged woman by her boyfriend. As the police investigation unfurls, the boyfriend tries to use his wealth to shield him from justice.

An American college student who studies Russian history heads to St. Petersburg at the the end of the Cold War and becomes attracted to her roommate's boyfriend, a former soldier. His stories, along with her interactions with other college students, add to her experience of a tentative social environment in post-war Russia.