Contagion - Softcover

Cook, Robin

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0425155943 ISBN 13: 9780425155943

Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1996

Synopsis

One of Cook's most successful--and timely—bestsellers. Contagion is a terrifying cautionary tale for the millennium as a deadly epidemic is spread not merely by microbes—but by sabotage...

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).

Edition details

• Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons
• Publication date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0425155943
• ISBN 13: 9780425155943
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 496