Butterflies

Jamal is a thirty something man, facing the deterioration of everything he has ever believed in: the political party, Islam, and more importantly, traditional family life. He leaves his home to look for answers.

Luigi, a traveling-show strongman, saves Carmelita from drowning and persuades her to join him. When Luigi kills his assistant, Giuseppe, in a jealous rage, they flee to Algiers, where Luigi joins the Foreign Legion and installs Carmelita as proprietress of a cafe. Marvin, an American legionnaire, falls in love with Carmelita, who has become a favorite of the regiment, but she remains loyal to Luigi out of gratitude. Luigi frames Marvin, who is punished by the authorities. In the ensuing fight between Marvin and Luigi, the strongman is getting the better of the American when Carmelita, who has learned of Luigi's intent to marry Madame La Cantinière, stabs her benefactor. The legionnaires decide to attribute Luigi's death to an Arab; Marvin and Carmelita are united.

Charlie Corrado is pushing forty and still lives with his grandparents, Martin and Marion Corrado. Although he feels safe in the environment they have created for him, he spends his days and nights longing for something more out of life.

Police headquarters has been plagued by a series of robberies, culminating in the theft of a priceless necklace smuggled from Europe. The detectives are on the track of a gang led by master thief Ramon Mordant and his accomplice known as "the Face" because of his twisted and hideous countenance. Among the detectives on the case is undercover agent Clara Hawthorne, masquerading as a mysterious, glamorous woman. The Face and Clara play a cat and mouse game until, while they are both in pursuit of Mordant, the Face secures the necklace and turns it over to Clara, at the same time revealing himself to be Prentice Tiller, chief of the Secret Service.

Life is strange and worrying for a cadet who arrives in the Pacific in the colonial service. And the testy resident commissioner, who had been expecting an experienced man, soon shows his disapproval.