Stephen P. Kanar
Bantam Books/Random House, Inc.
February 2000
Genre: Fiction
Format: Mass-Market Original

THE J FACTOR takes place at a time in the future when organ transplants have become commonplace, and replacement organs are allocated according to a system that quantifies everyone's conduct, health and importance to society based on a point system: a justification factor.

David West, a new heart surgeon, inadvertently performs an unauthorized transplant on his first patient—who is then murdered to protect the system's monopoly on replacement organs. The International Organ Replacement Corporation (IORC) has an international monopoly, which is protected by treaties that make it a sovereign corporation and grant it extensive power and control.

West meets a young attorney, Janette Compton, and together they struggle to unravel the truth about the murder and to expose the IORC's actions before they and hundreds of others find out just how far IORC will go to protect its monopoly.