Product Description

Jennifer Hernandez is a fourth-year medical student at UCLA whose world is shattered during an otherwise ordinary day. While half-listening to a news report on medical tourism, where first-world citizens travel to third-world countries for surgery, she hears her beloved grandmother’s name mentioned, and her own heart nearly stops: the reporter says Maria Suarez-Hernandez had died, a day after undergoing a hip replacement in New Delhi’s Queen Victoria Hospital.

Maria raised Jennifer and her brothers from infancy, and their bond was unshakable. Still, the news that Maria had travelled to India is a shock to Jennifer, until she realizes it was the only viable option for the hardworking yet uninsured woman. Devastated, Jennifer takes emergency leave from school and heads to India, where relations with local officials go from sympathetic to sour as she presses for information. With the discovery of other unexplained deaths followed by hasty cremations, Jennifer reaches out to her mentor, New York City medical examiner Dr Laurie Montgomery.

Laurie, along with her husband, Dr Jack Stapleton, rushes to the younger woman’s side. And as the death count grows, so do the questions, leading Laurie and Jennifer to unveil a sinister, multilayered conspiracy of global proportions.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #33726 in Books
• Published on: 2009-03-06
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 350 pages

www.handbag.com
'There's a thoughtful depth to this book as it looks at the situation which medical tourism produces...'

About the Author

Dr Robin Cook lives and works in Florida.

Customer Reviews

Once upon a time.................
Once upon a time, there was this good doctor who wrote terrific medical thrillers. His books became very popular. He sold millions of copies and soon became a full time writer and a rich man.

For a long time his many fans enjoyed his work and each book was awaited with great anticipation.

Then suddenly one day, to his fans' great disappointment, he wrote a rather boring book. At first, his many admirers hoped it to be a one time occurence. But other boring books followed, all lacking the freshness and new ideas of his earlier works which had always kept his faithful audience captivated.

After a long row of disappointments, a book set in India, seemed promising and the fans once again held their hopes high and ran to the bookstores. The book was based upon an up to date healthcare matter in America, and raised questions of great importance.

But alas, in spite of a splendid idea and a great opportunity to turn the trend and get back to earlier greatness, the book was a flop and lots of disappointed fans simply gave up after a few chapters. Some even wondered whether the doctor had really written the book himself. Stilted language, repetitive dialogues, unrealistic plots and ideas. It all seemed both rather hasty and in lack of good editing.

And so, numerous books ended up gathering dust in bookcases all over the world and some were even thrown in the garbage, while buyers regretted good money badly spent, and swore they would never again buy a book by their previously cherished idol.

So if the good doctor has not decided to once again offer the quality of his heydays, it's goodbye and thanks for the memories. It was fun as long as it lasted.

(I take the liberty to refer to other reviews at Amazon.Com US.
Sissel M. Østdahl)

Foreign Body
Not as bad as other reviews indicated.Certainly not up to his early standard but readable.

Readable...but disappointing
A lot of people have been giving recent Robin Cook offerings poor reviews and sadly this book doesn't do much to improve things. As usual Dr Cook gets a bee in his bonnet about something that concerns him in the current American medical system and writes a book to illustrate his point - in this case so-called 'medical tourism', i.e. people going abroad for surgery because it is cheaper than having it at home. And here we have a story where by the end you realise very little has happened, and the storytelling is rather below par, very stilted, with often FAR too much cumbersome detail of every move someone makes, which you almost feel is just there to pad the book out and take it to its page limit. The story drags on for over 400 pages, then finally runs out of steam, the cumbersome detail suddenly going completely the other way, when you would have liked a bit more, and suddenly everything gets conveniently tied up far too quickly in the last 30 or so pages (not that he is the only author guilty of that). So overall, as with his last 3 or 4 books, it was readable, but rather unsatisfying. And when compared to a lot of his earlier books that used to really grip me, it is a great shame!