Foreign Body by Robin Cook

From the Publisher

In this chilling new novel from the one and only Robin Cook, New York City medical examiners Laurie Montgomery and Jack Stapleton rush to India to help a UCLA student investigating medical tourism-and a sinister global conspiracy.

San Francisco Chronicle

A top-notch thriller with the freshness and impact of his earlier efforts. . . . Critical is tightly written, and each supporting character is vivid and memorable. The novel is a credit to the medical genre, which Cook is generally thought to have created and made popular.

Publishers Weekly

Bestseller Cook (Critical) stumbles in this formulaic thriller about the timely subject of medical tourism, the trend in which U.S. citizens seek to save costs on expensive surgery through treatment overseas. At the center of the drama is Jennifer Hernandez, a fourth-year medical student at UCLA, whose grandmother has died in a New Delhi hospital following hip replacement surgery. Suspicious about the circumstances, Hernandez immediately flies to India to investigate. There she not only discovers a number of similar deaths of U.S. citizens but also runs into the one-two punch of a desperate Indian medical industry struggling to block all publicity about the deaths and a huge American HMO that wants nothing more than the widest exposure of the apparent medical missteps in the Third World. Implausible plot twists, unconvincing villains, silly dialogue and a convenient, all-too-happy ending make this one of Cook's rare weak efforts. (Aug.)

A.J. Wright - Library Journal

When her beloved grandmother suddenly dies after routine hip surgery in India, UCLA medical student Jennifer Hernandez interrupts her studies and flies to New Delhi to claim the body. Arriving at the ultra-modern Queen Victoria Hospital, Jennifer notices problems with her grandmother's case that worry her. When a second, and then a third, sudden death of an American "medical tourist" occur over the next two days, Jennifer becomes suspicious. She turns for help to her mentor, New York City medical examiner Laurie Montgomery, who leaves immediately for India, accompanied by husband and fellow medical examiner Jack Stapleton. (Both characters appeared previously in the author's Chromosome 6 and Vector.) What the trio discovers is a vast conspiracy to undermine India's growing medical tourism industry by an American health-care firm willing to resort to blackmail, kidnapping, and murder. Cook's 27th medical thriller includes his standard brew of interesting characters, plenty of medical background, a fast pace, and increasingly unbelievable events. Fans willing to suspend disbelief will enjoy the ride. Recommended for popular fiction collections. [See Prepub Alert, LJ4/1/08.]

Product Details