Rating: Summary: JUST GREAT! Review: I thought the plot was great and he developped the characters very well.I'm reading Vector now - it's quite good so far!
Rating: Summary: Absolutely Awful Review: I'm sure you've read the plot synopsis by now, so I'll skip it and get to the real review. This book is a long, contrived, boring piece of unrealistic drivel. This guy went to Harvard? It reads like an Encyclopedia Brown mystery, except you figure it all out much quicker. The characters are underdeveloped and frighteningly unrealistic (not to mention just plain stupid. It took them 400 pages to figure out what was going on? Maybe they went to Harvard, too). Evidently, in Dr. Cook's world nobody ever utters an obscenity or does anything risque or more involved than "making love." We get pages and pages about a man having an affair with his business associate, been when it comes to the pivotal moment the experience is summed up in two words. Sounds like Cook is as prudish as his main characters. Skip this book unless you enjoy mind-bogglingly bad literature (a la "Mystery Science Theater 3000", perhaps). This is my first, and last, Robin Cook novel.
Rating: Summary: Absolutely Awful Review: I'm sure you've read the plot synopsis by now, so I'll skip it and get to the real review. This book is a long, contrived, boring piece of unrealistic drivel. This guy went to Harvard? It reads like an Encyclopedia Brown mystery, except you figure it all out much quicker. The characters are underdeveloped and frighteningly unrealistic (not to mention just plain stupid. It took them 400 pages to figure out what was going on? Maybe they went to Harvard, too). Evidently, in Dr. Cook's world nobody ever utters an obscenity or does anything risque or more involved than "making love." We get pages and pages about a man having an affair with his business associate, been when it comes to the pivotal moment the experience is summed up in two words. Sounds like Cook is as prudish as his main characters. Skip this book unless you enjoy mind-bogglingly bad literature (a la "Mystery Science Theater 3000", perhaps). This is my first, and last, Robin Cook novel.
Rating: Summary: Very disappointing Review: Irritating to follow the continued stumblings and bickering of two disfunctional MDs and their small child. The child comes off as being the smartest and most intelligent of the family. No more Robin Cook for me.
Rating: Summary: Think twice about your HMO Review: Robin Cook again shows us that his novels contain an element that may affect you. In Fatal Cure, he questions HMOs and the morality about it all. Like most Cook novels, a few of the "mysteries" are easy to figure out from the beginning, but the book will still keep you in suspense. A great read!
Rating: Summary: Badly written and predictable Review: Robin Cook has a political message, but is not content to let the message come across with anything less than the force of a sledgehammer. He has rammed the same message about managed care down the readers throat one time too often. I found this book was extremely annoying to read, despite the fact that I agree with the message! Dr. Cook does not seem to even try to develop his characters, and the writing is what one would expect from an eighth grader, not a mature author. Don't waste your time reading this one!
Rating: Summary: Reviving the fear of hospitals... Review: Robin Cook is just one of those authors that you just love to read when you want to be slightly amused. This book gets you going and revives that fear of hospitals and doctors. Keeps you on the edge of your seat. If you don't read much of his work, this would be one to read!
Rating: Summary: Reviving the fear of hospitals... Review: Robin Cook is just one of those authors that you just love to read when you want to be slightly amused. This book gets you going and revives that fear of hospitals and doctors. Keeps you on the edge of your seat. If you don't read much of his work, this would be one to read!
Rating: Summary: A polemic against HMO's--oh, and there's a story, too Review: Robin Cook's "Fatal Cure" is more of the same from this best-selling author. As is standard, Cook takes a development in health care that is disturbing and expands it into fantastic proportions. In this case, the disturbing element is the increased emphasis on cost at the expense of patients' health--all courtesy of HMO's. "Fatal Cure" tells the story of two young doctors (Angela and David Wilson) who move to an idyllic Vermont town when they are able to land jobs, one at a hospital and another working for the only HMO in the area. David's patients begin dying at an alarming rate, and the deaths defy diagnosis. At the same time, they turn up the body of a doctor in their basement. The dead man had disappeared relatively recently, and the Wilsons (Angela, especially, as she becomes obsessed with the matter) seek to unravel the mystery surrounding his death. Their efforts, however, do not please the town, which responds with threats, vandalism, and hostility. And as if these two problems are not enough, there's the rapist who has been claiming victims in the hospital's parking lots. The story is thoroughly transparent, and while the precise identity of the culprit might not be obvious, the reasons behind and causes of the patients' mysterious deaths should not be any surprise (and shouldn't have been a surprise to the Wilsons). The lack of surprise is due largely to the transparency of Cook's political message. The characters' motivations do not seem to be entirely consistent with reality, especially as the two young doctors repeatedly endanger their daughter's life by taking her into high-risk situations. Angela, for example, takes the girl with her when she goes in search of her missing husband rather than leaving the child with her grandparents. That factor, more than the political intrusion, is especially disturbing. Cook does know how to string together dramatic events, but the characters are too dull to figure out what is obvious, and the writing is rather poor. For Cook's fans, though, none of these problems will come as a surprise or present any difficulties. For people in search of realism or intelligent and multi-dimensional characters, look elsewhere.
Rating: Summary: Badly Written Review: Same story as contagion, also by Robin Cook, but not as well written. Reads as though it was written in one week-end, don't waste your week-end reading it!
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