The Curmudgeons

The Curmudgeons: South Georgia Stories of Risk and Redemption by Tom Word. Fiction novel. Hard cover. 321 pages.

From back cover:

Ben "Long" Reach, lawyer, and Sam Nixon, doctor, are legends in Albany, Georgia, the northern anchor of the quail plantation belt stretching south to Tallahassee. The two curmudgeons have been friends and fishing and quail-hunting buddies since childhood. Sam went off to college and med school at Harvard, then interned at Emory, served in the Vietnam War, and returned to open a private practice in Albany. Ben stayed closer to home at the University of Georgia, where he finished an undergrad degree and then studied law before joining his father's law practice in Albany. In their early seventies now, they give retirement no thought. Meeting each weekday for breakfast at Millie's Diner, they share observations and solve problems for rascals and saints in the unique culture of their region, where old-money rich Yankees, new-money rich southern entrepreneurs, hand-to-mouth crackers, and even poorer black folk live in mutual dependence.