Janet Sandison comes home to the small fishing village of Achcraggan in Scotland. Behind her are ten years of happiness with her husband Twice, whose death has brought to an end their life on the island of St Jago in the West Indies. Before her lies a new career as a novelist and a return to the countryside of her childhood-and above all to George and Tom who were her closest friends, mentors and allies, in those early days. But now, Reachfar, the family croft on the hill overlooking Poyntdale Bay, has been sold and George and Tom in their old age are living cheerfully if haphazardly in Jemima Cottage in the village. Janet, George and Tom quickly take up their lives together after nearly forty years apart; Janet buys and converts an old barn on the shore and the three of them set up house. Janet, who has not found it easy to face the loss of her beloved Twice nor to adjust to the strange new world of the professional writer, rediscovers with delight that the old Reachfar values still hold a firm grip on her family and neighbours, but the one thing she cannot face is the ruin of the Reachfar croft itself. Not even the urging of her young nephews and niece- the Hungry Generation-will persuade her to climb the hill. This psychological problem is only a small part of the dramas and happenings, some sad, some joyous, which fill the pages of this enchanting and wonderfully enjoyable book. Readers of any or all of Jane Duncan's 'Friends' novels will rejoice particularly in My Friends George and Tom, for the wise and funny characters of the title have played important supporting parts in many of the earlier books and finally have a book which is triumphantly their own.

What's up the Gates family tree? In the next hilarious illustrated instalment of Tom Gates, Mr. Fullerman has a class assignment: a family tree! Tom's ready to learn all about the Gates family, his friends and a furry creature (or two!). But just what is that squawking sound coming from Tom's shoes?

The year is 1936. Charles "Lucky" Luciano is the most powerful gangster in America. Thomas E. Dewey is an ambitious young prosecutor hired to bring him down, and Cokey Flo Brown--grifter, heroin addict, and sometimes prostitute--is the witness who claims she can do it. Only a wily defense attorney named George Morton Levy stands between Lucky and a life behind bars, between Dewey and the New York governor's mansion. As the Roaring Twenties give way to the austere reality of the Great Depression, four lives, each on its own incandescent trajectory, intersect in a New York courtroom, introducing America to the violent and darkly glamorous world of organized crime and leaving our culture, laws, and politics forever changed. Based on a trove of newly discovered documents, Tom & Lucky (and George & Cokey Flo) tells the true story of a singular trial in American history: an epic clash between a crime-busting district attorney and an all-powerful mob boss who, in the crucible of a Manhattan courtroom, battle for the heart and soul of a dispirited nation. Blending elements of political thriller, courtroom drama, and hard-boiled pulp, author C. Joseph Greaves introduces readers to the likes of Al Capone, Dutch Schultz, Meyer Lansky, and Bugsy Siegel while taking readers behind the scenes of a corrupt criminal justice system in which sinners may be saints and heroes may prove to be the biggest villains of all.

'It seems to me,' my father said quietly, 'that one always tries to leave a place better than one found it . . .' From the time when she was small enough to be held high above his head Duncan Sandison was the most important person in Janet's life . . . This remarkable novel, the story of a remarkable man who has appeared in many previous Friends, begins with Janet as a young child at Reachfar. As she grows up her admiration for Duncan deepens into a bond of true affection that sustains her through many trials and adventures. After her marriage to Twice Alexander it is her father's letters that bring the scent of the heather to the Caribbean, carrying with them all the comfort of his love . . .

Scottish novelist Jane Duncan's semiautobiographical My Friends series was dismissed by postwar critics as lightweight, at a time when a coterie of "angry young men" monopolized the attention of the British publishing establishment. Yet deeper themes are at play in the 19 novels. Modern readers will recognize feminist motifs, a wide-ranging examination of women's education and work in the 20th century, a woman's view of the rising societal tensions of the 1920s and 1930s, and an outsider's perspective on the racial divide in the soon-to-be-independent West Indies. This book explores Duncan's body of work, out of print for decades, though sought by loyal fans. Her characters run the gamut--drunken tinkers, Lowland housewives, Irish miners, members of the London fast set and English marchionesses, all portrayed with telling detail. Her novels--two of them recently reprinted for a new generation--reveal a charming and perceptive recorder of the changes Great Britain underwent in the past century.

'Janet, what do you mean? What has been going on between you and that bloody boy?' When Janet Alexander learns that young Roddy Maclean intends to defy his parents and become a writer, not an engineer, she readily helps him run away from St Jago. Her impulsive action infuriates Rob and Marion Maclean, and harsh words end a long friendship. Interwoven with Janet's discovery of deeper currents under the placid surface of the Paradise estate, are unrest among the plantation workers, the convalescence of Twice Alexander, and the advent of Madame Dulac's grandson Edward, who falls more than a little in love with Janet. Not until Roddy unexpectedly returns to the island does Janet come to know the truth about her friends the Macleans . . .

'This Paradise community doesn't seem to me to be the secure, feudal, friendly affair that everybody likes to think. There's a change working . . .' As the turbulent island of St. Jago reaches a turning point in its way of life Janet and Twice Alexander are once again deeply involved in the daily life of the community. Many loved Friends reappear and now added to these are the gentle Mrs Miller from Achcraggan, a link with Janet's childhood; the widowed Mrs Miller in the toils of a mixed marriage, and coloured Mrs Miller who becomes Twice's secretary. When a double crisis occurs in her personal fortunes, Janet finds a new maturity.