About this item
The New York Times-bestselling author and master of the medical thriller returns with another heart-pounding story of medical intrigue. With her young son's potentially fatal neuroblastoma in complete remission, New York City medical examiner Laurie Montgomery returns to work, only to face the case of her career. The investigation into the death of CIA agent Kevin Markham is a professional challenge-and has Laurie's colleagues wondering if she still has what it takes after so much time away. Markham's autopsy results are inconclusive, and though it appears he's been poisoned, toxicology fails to corroborate Laurie's suspicions. While her coworkers doubt her assassination theory, her determination wins over her husband, fellow medical examiner Jack Stapleton, and together they discover associations to a large pharmaceutical company and several biomedical start-ups dealing with stem-cell research.
About the Author
Dr. Robin Cook (born May 4, 1940 in New York City, New York) is an American doctor / novelist who writes about medicine, biotechnology, and topics affecting public health. He is best known for being the author who created the medical-thriller genre by combining medical writing with the thriller genre of writing. His books have been bestsellers on the "New York Times" Bestseller List with several at #1. A number of his books have also been featured in Reader's Digest. Many were also featured in the Literary Guild. Many have been made into motion pictures. Cook is a graduate of Wesleyan University and Columbia University School of Medicine. He finished his postgraduate medical training at Harvard that included general surgery and ophthalmology. He divides his time between homes in Florida, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts where he lives with his wife Jean. He is currently on leave from the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary. He has successfully combined medical fact with fiction to produce a succession of bestselling books. Cook's medical thrillers are designed, in part, to make the public aware of both the technological possibilities of modern medicine and the ensuing ethical conundrums. Cook got a taste of the larger world when the Cousteau Society recruited him to run its blood - gas lab in the South of France while he was in medical school. Intrigued by diving, he later called on a connection he made through Jacques Cousteau to become an aquanaut with the US Navy Sealab when he was drafted in the 60's. During his navy career he served on a nuclear submarine for a seventy-five day stay underwater where he wrote his first book! [1]Cook was a private member of the Woodrow Wilson Center's Board of Trustees, appointed to a six-year term by the President George W. Bush. [2][edit] Doctor / NovelistDr. Cook's profession as a doctor has provided him with ideas and background for many of his novels. In each of his novels, he strives to write about the issues at the forefront of current medical practice.To date, he has explored issues such as organ donation, genetic engineering,fertility treatment, medical research funding, managed care, medical malpractice, drug research, drug pricing, specialty hospitals, stem cells, and organ transplantation.[3]Dr. Cook has been remarked to have an uncanny ability to anticipate national controversy. In an interview with Dr.Cook, Stephen McDonald talked to him about his novel Shock; Cook admits the timing of Shock was fortuitous. "I suppose that you could say that it's the most like Coma in that it deals with an issue that everybody seems to be concerned about," he says, "I wrote this book to address the stem cell issue, which the public really doesn't know much about. Besides entertaining readers, my main goal is to get people interested in some of these issues, because it's the public that ultimately really should decide which way we ought to go in
