Well, I've been reading a lot of L'Amour lately. So I decided to try something a little different. I picked a Michael Crichton book and it was a really pleasant surprise. He wrote this in 1968, and of course the way things were looked at was much different. It's sort of interesting to get into the social views of the 60's a little bit and get a glimpse of perception from that time.

The story revolves around a Doctor by the name of Arthur Lee who is arrested and charged with the murder of the daughter of a prominent medical family. Karen Randall is the daughter and she shows up dead after an apparent abortion. Abortion is illegal in the 60's and they are holding him for murder as they believe he is an abortionist. The main character (I don't like the term protaginist) is John Berry, a pathologist who is friends with Dr. Lee.

The story takes place in Boston. Michael Crichton gives a pretty good description of a dirty seedy part of Boston. You are introduced to some pretty in depth medical observation, so it doesn't hurt to have some familiarity with medical terminology. Although he footnotes just about every medical term he uses.

There are a ton of twists and turns in this story, and you are a bit surprised at the ending (I won't play spoiler). The end of the story seems more of a lesson in the social aspects relating to abortion and more to the point, it seems like Crichton is a little biased in his writing as far as his beliefs go.

Although it's an average length book in my opinion, at 416 pages it's a fairly fast read. Considering there is some medical jargon in here, it's not at all difficult to understand or follow. You are easily pulled into the book by Crichton's easy and smooth style of writing.

All in all a very enjoyable book, and a nice shift from some of the other Michael Crichton books I have read (this ain't no Jurassic park :P ). Of course I always enjoy when they use pen names and this is written as Jeffery Hudson.

Check this one out if you have a little free time for reading (took me about 3 days of leisure reading). It's a pretty solid read all in all.