Dr. David Weill spent 20 years as one of the world's pre-eminent heart and lung transplant surgeons. Some of his exploits are detailed in his memoir, Exhale: Hope, Healing and A Life in Transplant, which he wrote to preserve the amazing nature of transplant surgery, its successes and failures.

But as many authors have found, writing fiction from fact is incredibly freeing. Thus, his first novel, ...