Mortal Choice - by David Shactman

About the Book

In the shadow world of black-market kidneys, a single mother and FBI agent faces a terrible choice. Can she conspire with the killers she is investigating to get her daughter a kidney? What is she willing to do to save her daughter's life?

Book Synopsis

Winding through the neighborhoods of Greater Boston, Mortal Choice takes readers into the shadow world of black-market kidneys, where an African American FBI agent whose eight-year-old daughter needs a kidney confronts ethical dilemmas in her roles as both mother and agent. When a young man is found murdered with his organs missing, Cassandra Crawford's FBI boss pressures her to go undercover and conduct a sting. The case takes Crawford and her daughter to New Delhi, where Crawford faces a mother's terrible choice. Does she dare subvert the investigation to get her daughter a life-saving kidney?

Back home, her friend and collaborator, Boston Detective Martin Goldberg, tracks down the killer. A harrowing chase through the city of Boston resolves the murder mystery, but Crawford is blackmailed by her boss about her decision in New Delhi. The steel-willed protagonist must decide what moral compromises she is willing to make to save her daughter's future.

Crawford executes an ingenious plan but fears that its revelation will ruin her unlikely relationship with Goldberg. Although the white, Jewish, Boston Detective thinks he is aware of their differences, he is shocked to realize what she was willing to do. Yet, he understands that "a sentence of death can bend the moral compass."

Through the vehicle of a tense murder mystery, Shactman has created a story that will pull on the heartstrings of any parent. What if it was your daughter? Would you compromise your morals? Would you break the law? How far would you go to save the life of your only child?