The novel pits Ted Cogan, a forty-three-year- old surgeon and self-described womanizer, against Hank Madden, a handicapped veteran detective. From the outset it's not clear who is victim and who is victimizer, as the usually dispassionate Madden grapples with his long-suppressed prejudices and his obsession with bringing Ted Cogan to justice at any cost. It all leads up to the most stunning surprise ending since Scott Turow's Presumed Innocent.

An emergency room surgeon must defend himself against a teenage girl's shocking allegation "in this scalpel-sharp medical thriller" ( Kirkus).
Dr. Ted Cogan had saved her life when he treated her in the ER six months ago. But now police detectives are questioning him about her, in intimate detail. It seems the seventeen-year-old girl he'd saved is now dead. It looks like a suicide. And Cogan is in a heap of trouble.
Accused of raping the young woman, the case against Cogan appears to be airtight. Detective Hank Madden, a disabled veteran of the Menlo Park police force, has little patience or pity for men like Cogan. Now the rich, arrogant, self-described womanizer must do whatever it takes to prove that this terrible crime is not among his many sins.