Love this chilling mystery thriller! Again -- Robin Cook does not disappoint! Not sure how he comes up with such compelling and complex plots, but I think it would be scary to live inside his head.
Adam Schonberg, the hero of Cook's latest (and silliest) medico-thriller, is a N.Y. medical student, supported by wife Jennifer's dancing career--until Jennifer gets accidentally pregnant. What to do? Well, abortion is repugnant to both husband and wife; so Adam decides (not very plausibly) that he has to quit reed school and get a job--with Arolen Pharmaceuticals in New Jersey. Soon, however ...
More, trainee Adam is becoming more and more suspicious about the big, slick Arolen company: its salesmen have computerized personal data on all the potential doctor-customers in the N.Y. area; Arolen treats its M.D. customers to lavish ""educational"" cruises; the company is doing research on psychotropic drugs and fetology. And, meanwhile, pregnant wife Jennifer has become a patient at the ""weird"" Julian Clinic--where everyone speaks in a creepy ""flat voice,"" where one of the docs has just committed suicide, and where Jennifer's obstetrician (recently returned from a cruise!) has suddenly started prescribing an iffy anti-morning-sickness drug. . . manufactured by Arolen!! Could all these ""strange coincidences"" be connected? Could the Julian Clinic have an ulterior motive for mis-diagnosing Jennifer's unborn fetus (via amniocentesis) as severely abnormal? Could Arolen and the Julian be linked in a fiendish conspiracy to manipulate the medical profession and--via unnecessary abortions--generate a steady supply of fetal tissue for experimentation?? Of course, of course. So Adam sets out to get the goods on the Arolen conspiracy: he joins one of those doctor-cruises, witnessing the drugs-and-electrodes brainwashing of gullible docs; he uses a court order to rescue Jennifer from abortion. And, after sneaking into the Puerto Rico hospital where doctor-victims are getting assembly-line lobotomies, Adam brings vivid evidence of the Arolen horror to the top doc at the FDA. . . who just happens to be his estranged father.
This one got a little far fetched even for Robin Cook! A little over the edge on the whole conspiracy theme and how far they would go.
A medical student drops out of school on the eve of becoming a doctor when he finds out his wife is pregnant. Against the advice of his teachers he takes a job with a phamaceutical company. Now he is fighting for the life of his unborn child and to save his family.
As usual, Cook has come up with an intriguing idea for a medical thriller, but can't get off his soapbox long enough to tell it.
This time the bogeyman is Big Pharma, directing an unlikely plot to create Stepford Docs willing to prescribe only their company's medications. There's also a subplot about their acquiring fetal tissue for experimentation via performing unnecessary abortions, which brings in the young hero whose unexpectedly pregnant wife is in jeopardy.
