At a Boston hospital, a new surgeon, Dr. Carey, becomes an amateur sleuth to help clear a colleague's name who's been accused of botching an illegal abortion that killed a 15 year old girl; the daughter of the chief surgeon.

Dr. Peter Carey is a pathologist at a Boston hospital. The daughter of the hospital's Chief of Staff dies after an illegal abortion goes wrong, and Carey's friend and colleague Dr. David Tao is accused of performing the abortion. Carey doesn't buy it, and so he digs deeper, angering the girl's father in the process. Questions abound: Who performed the abortion? Was the girl really pregnant? And what does it have to do with stolen morphine, blackmail attempts, and a mysterious and dangerous masseur?—reservoirdog909

Moving from Palo Alto, Dr. Peter Carey has just started working as a pathologist at Boston Memorial Hospital. Beyond beginning a relationship with dietitian Georgia Hightower, Peter's focus quickly changes from his work at the hospital to helping his friend, Dr. David Tao, who has just been implicated in the murder of fifteen year old Karen Randall, the daughter of the hospital's chief of staff, Dr. J.D. Randall. The story is that Karen was four months pregnant, went to Dr. Tao who was known to perform illegal abortions, and she bled out from the abortion gone wrong, Karen who herself implicated Dr. Tao to her mother just before she died. David admits that he did perform abortions, that Karen did come to him for such help, but that he refused to help her at her advanced stage of pregnancy. He further states that his motive in performing abortions was not profit driven - as he only charged $25 to cover lab fees - but rather to help girls who would have gone to quacks to get the job done otherwise. Peter gets little help from the Randalls, who are outwardly concerned for their daughter, but inwardly concerned about their and the hospital's reputation. But as Peter goes through his investigation, he places his own life in danger as he gets closer to the truth.—Huggo