Chicago, April 1932. The city is ruled by underworld czars, one of the toughest of which is Nate Kester, former henchman for the Capone mob. To put up a pretense of legality, he owns and runs the Odeon Theatre, which specializes in Burlesque, but his real operation is bootleg booze. Kester has his boys drag in Henry Bogar, who has a 5-6 state territory selling imported brandy. Kester tells him that from now on he will carry his stuff-- cheap rotgut with forged ""de Bouverais"" cognac labels. Bogar tastes the stuff, and calls it slop; he says brandy drinkers will never buy it as long as the real stuff is available.
Good staff are hard to come by and, once found, are as priceless as one's own wife when it comes to their talent in the kitchen. At least, for handsome and distinguished Kerwin Drake, this is certainly the case when the arrival of his dowdy down-at-heel wife is a mere hors d'ouevres for the murderous meal that follows.
Drake travels to Venice to investigate the case of Beth Warren, a cipher expert at the American Embassy in London. She disappeared form her job, and rushed to Venice to be with her boyfriend when his brother way dying. But Drake discovers she is being used for the knowledge she has.
Blacksmith Sam Hill fights to keep the land on which his mother is buried, after his drunken father signs the deed over to Colonel Tyson and his private army. Poetic episode written by John T. Kelley and directed by Robert Altman.
When Roy Tayloe is murdered following a poker game, quick-tempered Harry Miles is certain that daughter Melinda's suitor Tom Potter is the killer. Miles quickly becomes impatient with Matt's methodical investigation of the crime and threatens to kill Potter himself unless he stays away from Melinda.
In a future state where religion and books have been banned, a librarian is judged obsolete and sentenced to death.
Chicago, Summer 1931. Nick Acropolis is the new bookmaker in town, his territory is Illinois and the 6 surrounding states; he covers bets on horse racing, boxing matches, ball games, everything. By August, his operation is $2-million per month. And so Eliot Ness and his Untouchables are on the case; Enrico Rossi has a wiretap on one of Nick's betting parlors, run by Sully Hinds. Nick and his boys pay a visit to their bookkeeper, Louis Manzak, who is Nick's brother-in-law. Louis embezzled 200 grand of Nick's money, to make a side-bet on a boxing match, and lost.
James Howgill wants a divorce from his wife. When she refuses to give him one, he hires a private eye to follow her in hopes of finding evidence of adultery.
Drake joins forces with a European doctor when workers at an African nuclear power plant fall ill.
At the bedside of a seriously ill Adam, Ben thinks back to his days as a first mate in the merchant marines and his marriage to Adam's mother, Elizabeth Stoddard.
When an ex-marshal passing through town is shot in the back, Matt suspects a new saloon gal might have had something to do with it.
A young man has his head turned by, whatelse, a woman. In his haste to protect her, and her good name, the source of her pain turns up dead.
Sir Thomas Waller disapproves of his daughter's choice in boyfriends and hires a criminal to scare off an unwanted suitor. Keel and Steed rescue the swain from the criminal's henchman and discover a clue to an extortion plot.
State Troopers follow the tracks from a frozen pond, into a diner. Inside they find a soda jerk, a bus driver and his seven passengers. The bus driver is certain only six people boarded his bus…
Chicago, the 3rd week of November 1932. Working on an anonymous tip, Eliot Ness and his men raid a warehouse; all the crates are filled with champagne bottles, it was a shipment for the New Year's celebrations. Ness has the landlord who owns the warehouse, Michel (french for Michael) Viton, arrested; but he's released. Birdie, a deaf-mute, takes Viton to his boss, Edmund Wald, a bottle manufacturer (he's also the one who tipped Ness, to get rid of the competition).
When a robbery goes wrong and one fatal bullet becomes four, can self defense really be the motive behind a frightened man's gun-toting pursuit of the culprits? The police think not ... and they may have a point.
An army officer is acquitted of a murder he insists he committed.