In a small Japanese town, Ko-Ko is appointed to the unenviable position of executioner. Knowing he must successfully perform before the appearance of the Mikado in a month's time, Ko-Ko finds a suitable victim in Nanki-Poo, who is distraught over his unrequited love for the maiden Yum-Yum. Nanki-Poo agrees to sacrifice his life if he is allowed to spend his remaining days with Yum-Yum, who is betrothed to Ko-Ko.
Following her father's death, a teenage heiress moves in with her guardian uncle who is broke and schemes to murder his niece for her vast inheritance.
A fiction writer begins working on a biography of a pilot who went down during the test flight of a new plane and finds himself soon involved in a series of murders.
