Contagion - Hardcover

Robin Cook

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0333662792 ISBN 13: 9780333662793

Publisher: MACMILLAN, 1996

Synopsis

From the undisputed master of the medical thriller comes the story of a deadly epidemic spread not merely by microbes but by sinister sabotage--a terrifying cautionary tale for the millennium as the health care giants collide. After he loses first his Midwestern ophthalmology practice to a for-profit medical giant and then his family to a commuter airline tragedy, Dr. John Stapleton's life is transformed to ashes. Feeling less the golden boy than a jaded cynic, Stapleton retrains in forensic pathology and relocates to find an uneasy niche for himself in a city that suits his changed perspective: the cold, indifferent, concrete maze of New York. Stapleton thinks he is past pain and past caring, but as a series of virulent and extremely lethal illnesses--capped by a particularly deadly outbreak of a rare strain of influenza--strikes the young, the old, and the innocent, his suspicions are aroused. When the apparent epicentres of these outbreaks are revealed to be hospitals and clinics controlled by the same for-profit giant that cannibalized his old ophthalmology practice, Stapleton fears he has stumbled upon a diabolic conspiracy of catastrophic proportions: Could the for-profit giant be engaged in the systematic elimination of its more costly subscribers? Getting at the truth leads to Stapleton's unlikely pairing--both professionally and personally--with Terese Hagen, an art director at a hot Madison Avenue advertising firm. Together they discover that the real explanation behind the killer contagions is even more Machiavellian than could be imagined. Contagion anticipates some of the uncharted consequences of managed health care, in an age when even the wariest consumer may be at risk. It is Robin Cook at his unerring best.

About this title

Review:

When not one but three different extremely rare diseases kill several patients at a New York hospital, forensic pathologist Jack Stapleton suspects it's more than just coincidence. He thinks there's a connection between the appearance of the mysterious microbes responsible for the deaths and the HMO that owns the hospital--the same HMO that once destroyed his flourishing medical practice. Is Americare deliberately killing off its sickest patients--those who cost the most money to treat? Or is there an even more sinister motive behind the strange goings-on at Manhattan General, not to mention the attempts on Jack's life? And what is beautiful Terese Hagen, the hard-driving creative director of a Madison Avenue ad agency, doing in the middle of this slightly muddled, but still engrossing, tale of greed, medicine, and mayhem? Like Michael Crichton, whose Andromeda Strain remains the classic in the genre, Cook is sometimes heavy-handed when it comes to character development, and his fulminations about the dangers of managed care often get in the way of the plot. Still, Contagion will make you think twice about taking your next case of flu to the ER instead of your own bed. --Jane Adams

About the Author:

Doctor and author Robin Cook is widely credited with introducing the word 'medical' to the thriller genre, and over twenty years after the publication of his breakthrough novel, Coma, he continues to dominate the category he created. Cook has successfully combined medical fact with fiction to produce over twenty-seven international bestsellers, including Outbreak (1987), Terminal (1993), Contagion (1996), Chromosome 6 (1997), Foreign Body (2008), Intervention (2010) and most recently Cure (2011).

About this edition

• Publisher: MACMILLAN
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0333662792
• ISBN 13: 9780333662793
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 448