Inez Burns was adored by the desperate women who sought her out - and loathed by the power-hungry men who plotted to destroy her.

During a time when women risked their lives with predatory practitioners lurking in back alleys, Inez and her team of women, clad in crisp, white nurse's uniforms, worked night and day in her elegantly appointed clinic, performing 50,000 of the safest, most hygienic abortions available during a time when even the richest wives, Hollywood stars, and mistresses had few options when they found themselves with an unwanted pregnancy.

In The Audacity of Inez Burns, Stephen G. Bloom reveals a jagged slice of lost American history. From Inez's riveting tale of glamour and tragedy, he has created a brilliant, compulsively listenable portrait of an unforgettable woman during a moment when America's pendulum swung from compassion to criminality by punishing those who permitted women to control their own destinies.