Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Aug 2007
464 pages
Genre: Thrillers
Publication Information
Angela Dawson, M.D., appears to have it all: at the age of thirty-seven, she owns a fabulous New York City apartment, a stunning seaside house on Nantucket, and enjoys the perks of her prosperous lifestyle due to her company, Angels Healthcare. With her controlling interest in three busy specialty hospitals in New York City and plans for others in Miami and Los Angeles, Angela's future looked very bright.
Then a surge of drug-resistant staph infections in all three hospitals devastates Angela's carefully constructed world. Not only do the infections result in patient deaths, but the fatalities also cause stock prices to tumble, leaving market analysts wondering if Angela will be able to hold her empire together.
New York City medical examiners Laurie Montgomery and Jack Stapleton are naturally intrigued by the uptick in staph-related post-procedure deaths. Aside from their own professional curiosity, there's a personal stake as well: Laurie and Jack are newly married, and Jack is facing surgery to repair a torn ligament at Angels Orthopedic Hospital. Despite Jack's protests, Laurie can't help investigating - opening a Pandora's box of corporate intrigue that threatens not just her livelihood, but her life with Jack as well.
"It all adds up to an entertaining mix of suspense, action and education about medical issues." - PW.
"Although not a master stylist, Cook does create enough interest in the characters and the story lines to keep readers interested." - Library Journal.
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Doctor and author Robin Cook is widely credited with introducing the word
"medical" to the thriller genre, and thirty years after the publication of his
breakthrough novel, Coma, he continues to dominate the category he created. Cook
has successfully combined medical fact with fantasy to produce a succession of New York
Times bestsellers, including Outbreak (1987), Mindbend (1988), Mutation
(1989), Harmful Intent (1990), Vital Signs (1991), Blindsight (1992),
Terminal (1993), Fatal Cure (1994), Acceptable Risk (1995), Contagion
(1996), Chromosome 6 (1997) and Toxin (1998) and many others.
In each of his novels, Robin Cook strives to write about the issues at the forefront of
current medical practice. To date, he has explored issues such as...
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