Eastern College Hospital is on its third administrator in four years--and newly arrived Doug Carpenter is already finding it a challenge to provide quality care with the existing atmosphere of power struggles and greed. The combative environment obstructs any chance at a smooth-running operation and threatens Doug's authority--but that's not all. A patient commits suicide. A drunk anesthesiologist kills a mother during an emergency delivery. Several patients fall victim to an "angel of death," and another is poisoned by an unscrupulous doctor.

Then a union strike explodes into violence--and something much more precious to Doug than his career is endangered . . .