Critical

Robin Cook

Aug. 2007 · Penguin Random House Audio · Vorgelesen von George Guidall

Über dieses Hörbuch

New York City medical examiners Laurie Montgomery and Jack Stapleton return in this stunning novel from the “master of the medical thriller” (New York Times)—a ripped-from-the-headlines tale of an innovative doctor’s dangerous downward spiral.

After a rough climb to the top, doctor and businesswoman Angela Dawson appears to have it all: a start-up—Angels Healthcare—that’s about to go public, and a controlling interest in three busy specialist hospitals in New York City as well as plans for others in Miami and Los Angeles. But then a surge of drug-resistant staph infections in all three hospitals devastated her carefully constructed world...

NYC medical examiners Laurie Montgomery and Jack Stapleton are naturally intrigued by the uptick in staph-related post-procedure deaths at these hospitals. Aside from their professional curiosity, there’s a personal stake as well: Jack is facing surgery to repair a torn ACL at Angels Orthopedic Hospital.

Despite Jack’s protests, Laurie can’t help investigating—thus opening a Pandora’s box of corporate intrigue that threatens not just her livelihood, but both of their lives as well.

Autoren-Profil

Doctor and author Robin Cook is widely credited with introducing the word “medical” to the thriller genre, and thirty one 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 twenty-seven New York Times bestsellers that have been translated into forty languages. To date, they include 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), Toxin (1998), Vector (1999), Shock (2001), Seizure (2003), Marker (2005), Crisis (2006), Critical (2007) and Foreign Body (2008).

In each of his novels, Robin Cook strives to elucidate various medical/biotech ethical issues. Dr. Cook says he chose to write thrillers as a way to use entertainment as a method of exposing the public to public policy conundrums such as genetic engineering, medical economics, in vitro fertilization, research funding, managed care, drug research, organ transplantation, stem cell research, concierge medicine, and M.D. owned specialty hospitals.

There have been numerous theatrical movies, television movies, and mini-series made from Robin Cook’s work. In addition to the successful feature film Coma, in December 1993, CBS-TV aired “Robin Cook’s Harmful Intent”; in November 1994 NBC-TV aired “Robin Cook’s Mortal Fear”; in May 1995, NBC-TV aired “Robin Cook’s Virus,” based on Outbreak; in February 1996 NBC-TV aired “Robin Cook’s Terminal”; in 1997 NBC-TV aired “Robin Cook’s Invasion”; and in October 2001 TNT-TV aired “Robin Cook’s Acceptable Risk”.