All over the planet - from Pakistan to Tanganyika, from Scotland to New Zealand - globe-trotting doctors, carrying their black bags enter the private worlds of patients as they struggle with the business of living and dying.

Susan Woldenberg Butler's candidly observed vignettes of the home visit grab you and draw you into a world of intriguing characters - at times both familiar and startling, repulsive and compelling.

* A perplexed forester in the Scottish Highlands confronts love for the first time, gun in hand.

* A rebellious London nurse stitches up an arrogant surgeon near the Benin border.

* A Sikh couple in Tanganyika fight the stigma of infertility.

* A young woman hides her illegitimate baby under a wardrobe and denies its birth.

* An exhausted thief scrabbles to provide for his massive family and energetic wife.

But there is more to this collection. These stories are strikingly relevant to 21st century general practice: the NHS, locums, euthanasia, ethics, litigation and the doctor-patient relationship - all of life is here.

This novel - a fictionalised account of the lives of remote and single-handed general practitioners - brilliantly captures the essence of family medicine, and so much more. The secrets from the black bag presented in these stories have been selected and developed from a number of interviews with home-visiting general practitioners.

Presented as a series of interconnecting chapters in 11 voices, meet the doctors as they speak to us of their delights, their fears, their failings and successes. The writing is clear and engaging, at times funny, at times poignant.

The stories of doctors traversing the dark night to their patients, bag in hand, covers more than physical distance. The stories deal with a myriad of subjects that concern modern medical practitioners and, consequently, their patients.

'The science that is medicine bumps thrillingly against human fear, passion, despair and hope'.
Alec Logan, Deputy Editor, BJGP