Product Description

Angela Dawson, M.D., appears to have it all: at thirty-seven, she owns a fabulous New York City apartment, a stunning seaside house on Nantucket, and enjoys the perks of her prosperous lifestyle. With her controlling interest in three busy specialty hospitals in NYC and plans for others in Miami and Los Angeles, Angela’s future looks very bright. But her climb to the top was rough, marked by a troubled childhood, a failed marriage, and the devastating blow of bankruptcy.

Then a surge of drug-resistant staph infections in all three hospitals devastates Angela’s carefully constructed world. Not only do the infections result in patient deaths, but the fatalities cause stock prices to tumble. Will Angela be able to hold her empire together?

Newly married Medical examiners Laurie Montgomery and Jack Stapleton are professionally and personally intrigued by these deaths. With Jack facing surgery in one of the hospitals to repair a torn ligament, Laurie can’t help investigating, opening a Pandora’s box of corporate intrigue that threatens not just her livelihood, but her life with Jack as well.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #122157 in Books
• Published on: 2008-08-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 277 pages

New Books
'A great personal read and given the topical nature of one of its themes (MRSA), plenty for the reading groups.'

About the Author

Dr Robin Cook lives and works in Florida.

Customer Reviews

The opposite of boot1947
I disagree with boot1947. Robin Cook's latest paperback Critical adds to his entertaining series of novels about New York pathologists Jack and Laurie. Robin Cook has written about these characters from their days in medical school, and this latest book is a welcome addition, further developing character whilst incorporating some of the latest medical techniques and opinions. It sounds like boot1947 has not read any of these previous novels as I think they would come to a different conclusion if they had.

A real disappointment
I've read many of Robin Cook's books and looked forward to reading this one. But at times I almost gave up in sheer frustration at the terrible writing. I don't remember his previous books being this bad - were the plots so much better that I ignored the style, or has his writing gone so much downhill? There is no character difference discernable through the dialogue which, as one commentator has already pointed out, is leaden. With better writing the plot might hold water, but it drags along, with tedious descriptions that I'm sure the author could have managed better in the past. I finished the book, but with a sense of relief rather than satisfaction.

Why do I do it?
I should know better. Same plot, same less than two-dimensional characters, same stilted dialogue. I suppose Mr Cook has written too many 'successful' books now for his editors to dare to ask him whether he's ever heard people speak the way his characters do. Try reading some of the conversations out loud and, if you can get your head round the way he constructs a sentence, try not to fall on the floor laughing. I'm constitutionally incapable of not finishing a book (apart from one by Robert Ludlum), but I wish I'd hurled this one some distance after the first chapter. I'm a slow learner, but I won't be buying another.