An early medical thriller by Michael Crichton who at one stage intended to use the name "Jeffrey Hudson" to write a bunch of books in that genre, but ended up only doing the one (he would later direct Coma, and write Five Patients and the pilot for ER under his own name).
It's an excellent page turner which deals with a subject that is still raw - abortion. Brennan, a pathologist in Boston, has an abortionist friend who is accused of murder so Brennan tries to solve it. There are some interesting philosophical discussions and character descriptions - an entertaining collection of medical people.
You wish the hero had a stronger motivation than "he was my friend". It felt as though he should have been Asian too (like the accused doctor), or have some family/romantic link, or be a woman (this was turned into a film at MGM directed by Blake Edwards with James Coburn... I kept thinking it should have been a Raquel Welch vehicle say).
The female characters are weak - the slutty dead girl, the slutty step mother, the non descript wives. But the research is wonderful as are the twists. It occasionally feels a bit 1969 - hero is constantly smoking and drinking alcohol (I think cigs killed Crichton) - but generally it's aged well.
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