The Price of Life

A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH

Professional rivalries, love triangles, life-and-death decisions are the stuff of daily life at Bel Air General, the world's most exclusive private hospital. Medical triumphs are often counterbalanced by trauma and tragedy--as a dedicated young surgeon prepares to perform a heart transplant on a brilliant concert pianist, a famous singer, cradled in silken sheets, lies wasted by anorexia; and an internationally renowned author, in the last stages of terminal cancer, prays that his suffering will soon end.

Nurse Cathy Walden's career has been built on her compassion and her fierce commitment to every patient's right to live. But the very foundations of her belief are shaken when unsuccessful surgery leaves her husband alive, but hardly living. Paul Walden cannot think, cannot speak, cannot recognize his wife. He never will. Faced with this unspeakable fact, Cathy is forced to reevaluate her deeply held conviction that life must be maintained, no matter what the cost.