Doctor in the swim - Richard Gordon

Dr Grimsdyke was only too pleased to discover that he was sitting next to the luscious Lucy Squiffington on his flight home. Several hours in her company was bound to go well - in fact it went rather too well seeing as how the long-suffering Anemone was waiting for him back home. A fact Grimsdyke seemed to have completely forgotten. And as if juggling two women wasn't enough, the Jellybone sisters then enter the scene with a troupe of female contortionists neatly in tow - hardly likely to help straighten things out for poor Grimsdyke. As he ponders his options, Grimsdyke falls headlong into a series of hilarious mishaps that leave him almost on the point of drowning.

Richard Gordon is best-known for his hilarious 'Doctor' books and the long-running television series they inspired. Born in 1921, he qualified as a doctor and went on to work as an anaesthetist at the famous St Bartholomew's Hospital, before a spell as a ship's surgeon and then as assistant editor of the British Medical Journal.In 1952, he left medical practice to take up writing full time and embarked upon the 'Doctor' series. Many of these are based on his experiences in the medical profession and are told with the rye wit and candid humour that have become his hallmark. They have proved enduringly successful and have been adapted into both film and TV. His 'Great Medical Mysteries' and 'Great Medical Discoveries' concern the stranger aspects of the medical profession, whilst 'The Private Life' series takes a deeper look at individual figures within their specific medical and historical setting. Clearly an incredibly versatile writer, Gordon will, however, always be best known for his comic tone coupled with remarkable powers of observation inherent in the hilarious 'Doctor' series.'Mr Gordon is in his way the P G Wodehouse of the general hospitals' - The Daily Telegraph.'I wish some more solemn novelists had half Mr Gordon's professional skills' - Julian Symonds - Sunday Times