We join George East at the start of the 60's when Rock 'n' Roll was in its infancy. Young men and women throughout the UK are dancing the night away as they experience teenagehood. Following the US with music, fashion and a new-found freedom. Eventually coming into their own, we see the start of a new era of English fashion and music with the likes of The Beatles, The Who, The Rolling Stones and more locally, The Stormriders, the latest name for George's errant band. "Because of the vast quantities of beer, acid (LSD), upper and downer pills, scrumpy cider and whacky baccy ingested at the time, my memories of the Sixties are understandably patchy in parts. To fill in the blanks, I'm grateful for the help of surviving contemporaries, old friends, foes and lovers, and, when available, police and court records and the recollections of arresting officers. My escapades were perhaps extreme, but I think my experiences and adventures in the so-called Swinging Sixties were broadly similar to millions of young men and women at a time when British society changed dramatically from the grey post-war years to what seemed to many a new and exciting world. Whether you believe it was a change for the better or worse will I think depend on your age, attitude and how much fun you had in those far-off days."

Growing Pains is the second book in a series of memoirs about growing up in the city of Portsmouth after World War Two. We join George in 1954, when Roger Bannister breaks the four-minute mile barrier, meat comes off rationing, and the big musical hits of the year include I saw Mummy kissing Santa Claus by the Beverley Sisters and Norman Wisdom's Don't Laugh at me 'cos I'm a Fool. Times are changing, but the country's leading naval port is still struggling to recover from the death and destruction brought about by wartime bombing.; The story of the pains and pleasures of coming of age in Portsmouth or any city as the Swinging Sixties loom and teenagers are invented makes for a sometimes poignant, sometimes hilarious and always entertaining read.; A truly honest account of a young man's life, his struggles with adolescence and keeping up the appearance of being tough.

It's the dying days of World War Two, and a child is born during a dramatic air raid that badly damages the family home and destroys the midwife's bicycle. At least, that's what George East's mother told him in later years. But then she also claimed that the painting-by-numbers picture of a bunch of sunflowers in the passageway could be a preparatory sketch for the real thing by Vincent Van Gogh. George's beloved but eccentric mother also claimed royal blood and that her ancestor and not Captain Hardy was the sailor Lord Nelson asked for a kiss as he lay dying on board HMS Victory. In Just a Pompey Boy, best-selling author George East recalls growing up in Portsmouth directly after WWII, when fitted carpets, double glazing, central heating and TV celebrities would be seen as far-fetched science fantasy. In a memoir that is funny, sad, heart-warming and always immensely readable, the author recalls a very different time to be young and alive in a characterful if war-battered city which was the Nation's premier naval base. A time when bomb damages were literally adventure playgrounds, food rationing was still in force and post-traumatic stress and even the concept of Health and Safety regulations had yet to be invented. As George remarks at the start of this first volume of his memoirs, the past has been said to be a foreign country; to the young people of today, this tale of a distant but golden childhood may seem to be about life on a very distant planet...

In Death a la Carte, bad-boy Police Inspector Jack Mowgley has jumped before being pushed and taken early retirement. With no prospects in England, he has moved across the Channel to set up in Cherbourg as a private investigator. His intentions are to live off the colourful band of British expats in the area while funding the restoration of his mostly-ruined manor house in the Normandy countryside. He expects to encounter nothing more demanding than cases of marital infidelity and financial irregularities, but soon finds himself involved in people trafficking, drug smuggling and a series of murders most foul. This must be read to the shocking end. Extracts: It occurred to Mowgley that the body on the bench was more like a shop window mannequin being prepared for display than a mutilated corpse. The comparison came to mind because there were no hands protruding from the cuffs of the sleeves, or head from the collar of the snow-white shirt... Coco Lecoq looked like an uncomfortable cross between an Old Testament prophet and the mad professor in Back to the Future. He had a shock of red hair, a moustache to rival Asterix the Gaul, and possibly the worst set of teeth Mowgley had seen in Normandy, which was saying something. An all-round arts enthusiast, Coco also staged regular open concerts in the square beside the pub. Last year he had arranged an exchange deal which involved the St-Sauveur Ladies Glee Club travelling to perform in a punk venue in East Dulwich, while the club had sent as its representatives a band called 'We Hate Fucking Foreigners'. What readers say about Mowgley: 'I was totally absorbed as the tale unfolded. Not so much by the plot, but by waiting for the next assault on political correctness.' 'Our dysfunctional detective hero is no Morse or Rebus, and thank goodness for that. Mowgley is refreshingly sordid, and I was secretly pleased to find he had absolutely no redeeming characteristics.' NB. All the events and situations relating to drug and people smuggling in the book are based on fact. The latest reports are that these activities are increasing most rapidly in northern France. ABOUT THE AUTHOR George East is not everyone's idea of an author. After leaving school at 16 with no qualifications, he set out on a varied career path which included (failed) Rock god, Impressionist (house) painter, plumber, welder, demolition engineer, pickled onion manufacturer, private detective, male model, lorry driver, brewer's drayman, PR and Marketing guru, magazine editor, freelance journalist, hotel manager, snooker hall owner, seamstress, night club bouncer, DJ and radio and television presenter and pub landlord. After writing his first book in 1969, his successful Mill of the Flea series followed several years later. Then George turned his hand to crime fiction and wrote Death Duty, the first book in a series about a seedy detective in charge of Portsmouth ferry port. He based the book on his experiences in travelling to and from France, and of his time behind bars when his pub was the local for a squad of CID officers. Soon followed the second, third and now fourth book Death a la Carte in what I suspect will be a long running series. Now, George divides his time between France and England, writing travel and crime books, and, as he says, winkling out the best and cheapest bars and restaurants in all France. To find out more about George and his work, his website can be found at www.george-east.net

High summer in the Balkans and George East arrives in Bulgaria to investigate an apparently potty scheme to rescue a dying mountain village. While there, the eccentric travel writer gets to know an array of fascinating locals from the President Putin lookalike and Meerkat soundalike to Mr Rotavator and the man who takes his milk direct from cows. Beyond the village, George discovers much about the little-known country that Bill Bryson described as a 'near-death experience.' The book also contains historical and cultural notes and traditional recipes. In his time in Bulgaria, George finds himself falling under the spell of an ancient kingdom and its people...A Note from the publishers:George is at his best when confronted with new surroundings and Bulgaria and the Balkans caused this torrent of enthusiasm for a country untouched by commerciality and modern falseness. Though the people are poor beyond anything that the west can imagine, they welcomed him with very open arms.

Jack Mowgley is anything but an ordinary copper. For starters, how many police officers have

DEATH DUTY is the first Inspector Mowgley murder mystery. The main character Jack is a cynical, world-weary, anti-authority and otherwise decidedly maverick CID officer. But as readers will discover, Jack Mowgley is very different from any other literary plainclothes policeman. For instance, he sleeps on a defunct lightship, drives a terminally ill Lada and has 'ACAB' (All Coppers Are Bastards) tattooed on his knuckles? He gets booze and baccy supplies by smuggling them through the continental ferry port he is supposed to be keeping free of crime? It is a mystery to other officers in the force how Jack Mowgley reached the rank of Detective Inspector and came to be in charge of policing the port. Some reckon the Ferry King has something juicy on his superiors, in particular the irascible Chief Superintendent Sidney 'Gloria' Mundy. The setting for DEATH DUTY is 1999, with the world on the brink of a new millennium. Jack Mowgley, it is commonly agreed, is on the brink of enforced early retirement. Or worse. Attitudes are changing, and those in authority think officers like Mowgley have no part to play in the Modern Police Force. Without doubt, Jack Mowgely is caught in a time-warp with regard to policing policies and procedures, and PC he most definitely ain't. A painful divorce resulted in our flawed hero being dispossessed of his home in Hampshire and lumbered with the crippling mortgage on a pretentious ruin in Normandy. It does not lessen the pain that his wife insisted on buying La Cour ('The Yard') before running off with its suave French vendor. At least. Mowgley reflects in a positive pub moment, owning the expensive ruin means he can call himself Mowgley of the Yard. The only woman in Jack Mowgley's life is CID Sergeant Catherine McCarthy. As well as his official bag-carrier, she is Mowgley's confidante, bringer of solace, and fierce protector from his host of detractors and those who would bring him down. She is also the only person who can keep up with him in the pub. To others in the force, she is a strikingly attractive but sometimes prickly officer. To Mowgley, she is his mate Melons...and he is the only human being on earth allowed to call her that. DEATH DUTY opens as Melons arrives in the scrap yard which is Mowgley's current abode to report on a tragedy. A woman passenger has disappeared from the deck of a ferry on a night crossing to Cherbourg. As the case develops, Mowgley and his assistant uncover increasing evidence that this is anything but a straightforward death at sea... WHAT THEY ARE SAYING ABOUT MOWGLEY: "I was totally absorbed as the tale unfolded. Not so much by the plot, but by waiting for the next assault on political correctness." "Our hero is no Bergerac and thank goodness for that. Mowgley is refreshingly sordid and I was secretly pleased to find he has absolutely no redeeming characteristics. "PC he most certainly ain't - and the tale is much the better for it."THE MAIN MAN Name: John ('Jack') Mowgley Rank: Detective Inspector (just) D.O.B.: 31.1.50 Height: 5ft 11 inches Weight: 16-17 stone (depending) Body shape: Lumpy Distinguishing Features: 'ACAB' tattooed on fingers of left hand. Scar on right temple. Frequently broken nose. Right earlobe mislaid.

As Friday 13th looms, so the East's unlucky streak comes to a climax. With them finally on their uppers, an advance offer from a publisher is a welcome relief until they discover they have already spent what is due to come from George's sales, and the bills keep mounting. French Cricket finds the author and his long-suffering wife facing imminent disaster as they struggle to survive at the Mill of the Flea. Something must be done to bring home the bacon, so our hero launches himself into another succession of hare-brained and inevitably doomed money-making schemes - French Cricket' is the fifth book in what has become a cult series, and follows our accident- prone hero through a long summer in Lower Normandy as he encounters an increasingly bizarre collection of characters, situations and events. Distractions from his money-making survival schemes to create ready-pickled eggs and breed boa-constrictors in the Big Pond include regular meetings of the infamous Jolly Boys Club. Members of this select debating society include the allegedly immortal Old Pierrot, who claims to have been on first name terms with William the Conqueror, JayPay (village superchef and entry for the moustache-growing championships of Lower Normandy), and the hypochondriacal Scabby Michel, who has had volumes of medical journals written about his ever-growing collection of exotic illnesses. Elsewhere, there's the invasion of an equally unusual collection of would-be British settlers, whose ranks feature a rollerblading barrister in search of the real world! and a retired 'hand artist' who claims to have been a stunt fingers double for Warren Beatty. Meanwhile, back at the Mill of the Flea, there are the constant confrontations with a tribe of homicidal goldfish and the escape committee in the chicken run, and failed attempts to find a dancing partner for a ballet-loving goose and cure a duck of its fear of water.

The third book in the best-selling MILL OF THE FLEA series, continuing the often farcical and always entertaining adventures of the author and his wife as they attempt to make a new life in rural France. Totally unlike any other book in the genre, FRENCH LETTERS takes the reader on another visit to a remote area of Normandy where time is of little value and reluctant tractors (and their drivers) are kick-started on frosty mornings with a tot of moonshine apple brandy. During another eventful year at the Mill of the Flea, the author and his wife once again encounter a host of improbable characters and situations, like the vegetarian couple who set up home next to a veal farm and an elderly post-mistress who grows highly illegal pot plants while enticing a colony of hornets to set up home in her attic -

In this hilarious collection of cautionary tales and anecdotes, George East discusses all the delights and drawbacks of finding, buying and restoring French property. HOME & DRY IN FRANCE follows the early adventures of George and Donella East as they make every mistake in the (not-then-written) book about how and how not to buy a second home across the Channel. Tellingly subtitled A YEAR IN PURGATORY, the book is much more than a listing of all the awful pitfalls awaiting the innocent abroad: it is the hilarious and always entertaining account of how a couple set out with a dream - and came close to turning it in to a nightmare.