Ernest H. Christman 
Illicit Liaisons 

This is a novel within a novella. It is set in Philadelphia, in a failing hospital of a crime-ridden neighborhood. The stresses of medical practice and the hospital administration are compounded by lawyers, gangs, drug dealers, and police investigations. Malpractice claims mount. Personal relationships are strained. The novella takes place twenty years after at a birthday party for the former hospital chief of staff. Three couples were invited along with their college-age children. The daughter of the former chief of staff is given a quasi-autobiographical novel he wrote but never published to give her perspective on the young man she is considering for her first lover. Therein, she gets a deep insight into the secret liaisons among the attendees; relationships that, if revealed, could destroy friendships.