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Cook's popular medical thrillers are designed, in part, to keep the public aware of both the technological possibilities of modern medicine and the ensuing ethical problems. His topic this time is reproductive science and the often murky baby-making business. Epidemiologist Marissa Blumenthal, seen before in Outbreak, now has a successful pediatrics practice near Boston and an affluent health-care-entrepreneur husband. But her inability to become pregnant threatens both her marriage and her career. After unsuccessful visits to a local fertility clinic, she discovers a suprising and suspicious link between her medical records and those of an inordinate number of the clinic's clients. Traveling to Australia to learn more about a worldwide in vitro fertilization organization, Marissa and her friend Wendy are trailed, and a tragedy occurs. Marissa, now accompanied by the physician whose work she had come to Australia to investigate, goes to Hong Kong and eventually China — fleeing murderous assailants every step of the way — before a billion-dollar international scam is revealed. As always, Cook enlivens predictable action and shallow characterization with medical expertise and timely subject matter. Views: 16
The nurse's voice on the phone is desperate, but young Dr. Peters, in his first weeks of internship, is only bone-tired and a little afraid. He has forgotten when he last slept. Yet he knows that in the coming hours he will have to make life-or-death decisions regarding patients, assist contemptuous surgeons in the operating room, deal with nurses who may know more than he does, cope with worried relatives and friends of the injured and ill, and pretend at all times to be what he has not yet become — a fully qualified doctor. This book is about what happens to a young intern as he goes through the year that promises to make him into a doctor, and threatens to destroy him as a human being — The Year of the Intern. Views: 10
In this uneven medical thriller from bestseller Cook ( Foreign Body ), Dr. Jack Stapleton, a New York City forensic pathologist who lost his first wife and their two children in a plane crash, is devastated when his newborn son by his second wife is diagnosed with high-risk neuroblastoma. As a diversion from his efforts to find a cure for his son, Stapleton seeks to expose unscrupulous practitioners of alternative medicine. In particular, he investigates the death of a healthy woman whose vertebral arteries were damaged by a chiropractor. Then the plot swerves into Da Vinci Code territory as two of Stapleton's college friends—the archbishop of New York and an archeologist—battle over skeletal remains that may be those of the Virgin Mary. When the characters themselves comment on the events as something out of a horror movie or a book, suspension of disbelief becomes even more of a challenge (e.g., He felt like he was a participant in a kind of unfolding real-life mystery-thriller). Views: 10
A series of unexplained deaths in foreign hospitals sends an idealistic UCLA medical student on a desperate search for answers, in this chilling tale from the master of the medical thriller .
Jennifer Hernandez is a fourth-year medical student at UCLA, just completing an elective in general surgery, whose world is shattered during a break in an otherwise ordinary day. While relaxing in the surgical lounge of L.A.’s Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, she half-listens to a piece on medical tourism, where first-world citizens travel to third-world countries for surgery. But when she hears her beloved grandmother’s name mentioned, her own heart nearly stops: the CNN reporter says Maria Suarez-Hernandez had died, a day after undergoing a hip replacement in New Delhi’s Queen Victoria Hospital.
Maria had raised Jennifer and her brothers from infancy, and their bond was unshakable. Still, the news that Maria had traveled to India was a shock to Jennifer, until she realized that it was the only viable option for the hardworking yet uninsured woman. Devastated, and desperate for answers, Jennifer takes emergency leave from school and heads to India, where relations with local officials go from sympathetic to sour as she presses for more information. With the discovery of other unexplained deaths followed by hasty cremations, Jennifer reaches out to her mentor, New York City medical examiner Dr. Laurie Montgomery, who has her own deep connection to Maria.
Laurie, along with her husband, Dr. Jack Stapleton, rushes to the younger woman’s side, discovering a sophisticated medical facility with little margin for error. As the death count grows, so do the questions, leading Laurie and Jennifer to unveil a sinister, multilayered conspiracy of global proportions. Views: 7
