Dirty Work (Unabridged‪)‬

Two women in a room. One is bleeding to death. The other just sits back and watches. For both, there is everything to lose. Surgeons are meant to save lives, but Nancy is a special kind of surgeon. Doctors are meant to be good at reporting the truth, but Nancy's is an untellable story. A mistake made in the operating theatre changes all of this.

Summoned to explain herself to a tribunal appointed by the General Medical Council, Nancy is forced to consider what it means to be a doctor who has killed as well as cured. And to realise that her own redemption can only come through telling a tale that nobody wants to hear.

Gabriel Weston, author of the acclaimed Direct Red: A Surgeon's Story, winner of the 2010 PEN/Ackerley Prize, has written an extraordinarily moving and powerful novel about a female doctor who performs abortions.

Gabriel Weston was born in 1970. She qualified as a doctor in 2000 and became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons in 2003. Her first book, Direct Red, was published in 2009. It was longlisted for the Guardian First Book Award and won the PEN/Ackerley Prize for Autobiography. She lives in London and continues to practise as a part-time ENT surgeon.