It’s been more than thirty years since New York City medical examiner Jack Stapleton’s college graduation, and almost as long since he’s been in touch with former classmates Shawn Daughtry and James O’Rourke. Jack was once a highly regarded ophthalmologist, but his career took a dramatic turn after a tragic accident destroyed his family. And that, too, is very much in the past: Jack has remarried — to longtime colleague and fellow medical examiner Laurie Montgomery — and his the father of a young child, who unfortunately has been diagnosed with neuroblastoma, a childhood cancer.

No matter what stresses he faces, Jack’s renegade, activist personality can’t rest. After performing a postmortem on a promising young college graduate who had recently been treated by a chiropractor, Jack begins researching alternative medicine as a way to avoid obsessing about his child’s illness. Quickly he is confronted by the question of what makes some people step outside the medical establishment to seek help from therapies based on dubious science, Eastern philosophies or even faith healers.

Jack’s classmate Shawn Daughtry is now a renowned archaeologist and biblical scholar. Brash, impetuous, and completely career-driven, Shawn makes a spectacular find at a souk in Cairo: an ancient codex, whose contents may vault him to international fame. His discovery takes him on a secret journey to what is held to be Saint Peter’s tomb beneath the basilica in Rome, where he hopes to unearth a two-thousand-year-old ossuary, the contents of which may have earthshaking ecclesiastical and medical implications.

Shawn can’t wait to flaunt his treasure before his old college buddy James O’Rourke — now James Cardinal O’Rourke, bishop of the Archdiocese of New York: the treasure may jeopardize the very nature of papal infallibility. Desperate to protect his church and his own political ambitions, James turns to his friend Jack to help safeguard an explosive secret, one with the power to change lives forever.

With his finger on the pulse of the latest medical technology, Robin Cook preys on our deepest fears with uncanny skill. Now, in this most provocative thriller, he explores a sudden outbreak of strange new symptoms that defy diagnosis. The cause is unknown — and unknowable — because it is unlike anything humankind has ever seen...

“…a spellbinding mystery…intricate adventure… Murder, deception and passion moved the story at a fast pace… kept me guessing until the end.”Where secrets collide… Shortly after university researchers Diane and Vincent Rose join a prosperous Houston biotech company, Vincent begins seeing hints of darkness in their new workplace and records his suspicions as if they are scientific data. When Vincent vanishes during a yacht race off the coast of Texas, Diane Rose makes the stark discovery that another BRI scientist disappeared just months before. Is there a connection? Devastated but determined to uncover the truth, she trades her microscope for binoculars and master keys—unaware she’s being watched.Drawing on her research skills, she covertly investigates BRI’s enigmatic staffers: an animal rights extremist with destructive tendencies, a disgraced scientist with ulterior motives, a shadow employee with dangerous secrets to protect and a sadist who gets his thrills through animal torture. But the hunter becomes the hunted. On the run, Diane follows an international trail of secret societies, ill-fated lovers, greed and murder; all the while fighting an attraction to one of the world’s most powerful men—a man who wants to bed her or kill her—or both

In Mercy 6, four people in four separate places within the same Los Angeles hospital all collapse and die at once. After a quick examination, Dr. Anna Mendenhall, the first ER doctor to care for the patients, orders the entrances and exits to be sealed, believing the cause is contagion. With her is Mullich, the architect responsible for re-designing the hospital, which he had modeled for precisely this scenario: containment.Almost as soon as she makes the call, however, Mendenhall realizes it’s a mistake. As infectious disease specialists take over, she fears they will draw out the investigation—see what they want to see—and keep everyone locked in the hospital for an unnecessarily long time.What actually occurs, however, is more complex and unnerving than Mendenhall expects, as sinister outside agencies begin to get involved and medical concerns cease to be the primary concern. The farther her investigation goes, the more she understands that the forces around her want her contained, not because of her exposure to the patients, but because of what she suspects.Mercy 6 is well researched and only slightly speculative—which makes this understated and cutting-edge medical thriller as chilling as it is suspenseful.

Once upon a time, people believed that diseases such as Cholera and the Black Death were caused by the inhalation of noxious vapours, particularly those arising from decomposing organic matter — the miasma. We now know that bacteria and viruses are the true cause of disease and, when epidemics break out, the modern science of epidemiology enables us to trace their source and predict their likely spread. When an epidemic of the killer disease, Ebola, in the Democratic Republic of Congo does not appear to follow the rules... it’s a worry.

The man who invented medical techno-horror takes you on a startling and chilling odyssey into the origins of life — and death.

When an eminent biomolecular geneticist dies violently before his eyes, a doctor must use more than his medical knowledge to explain what he comes to believe is murder, and to stop a scientific breakthrough from becoming a curse instead of a miracle.

There was a lot that internist Jason Howard didn’t know about Dr. Alvin Hayes. But when the scientist met his sudden end, it all came out with a vengeance — for the academically respected geneticist had led a double life, and the private side was damning.

Dismissing official police reports linking Hayes’s death to his associations with the sordid side of society, Jason believes Hayes was silenced to keep him from revealing the results of his research, and the secret lies not in the back streets of Boston’s erotic underworld, the Combat Zone, but in the high-tech genetics laboratories of the Good Health Plan clinic.

Overcoming his own personal emotional problems, Jason turns his powers of diagnosis to deduction, vowing to solve the mystery no matter who tries to stop him. His search will take him from gleaming modern labs to seamy sex clubs, from Beacon Hill drawing rooms to the wilds of the Pacific Northwest and back, before the pieces of the deadly puzzle fall into place.

By then, Jason has unearthed the scientific breakthrough Hayes was killed to hide — and has himself become the target of a malevolent cabal, bend on using the origins of life to create a hell on earth.

With this disturbing story, DNA research is shown to have a fearful potential, not only through possible mistakes and accidents, but ironically even through success. Splendidly researched and intricately plotted, Mortal Fear is Robin Cook at his prophetic and galvanizing best.

He sought to create the son of his dreams — and invented a nightmare. Robin Cook’s new techno-medical thriller probes every father’s greatest fear.

Drawing on a horror theme as old as Frankenstein, as fresh as tomorrow’s headlines, Mutation is a chilling cautionary tale of the perils of genetic engineering.

When ob/gyn and biomolecular researcher Dr. Victor Frank learns of his wife’s infertility, he initiates a bold — and dangerous — experiment. Unbeknownst to everyone, including her, Dr. Frank has adapted the methods of animal husbandry and molecular genetics to human reproduction. Fusing his wife’s egg and his own sperm, he sets in motion the production of a superior being, his child.

The result of this experiment, a son, VJ, is born to a surrogate mother and legally adopted by the Franks. To their delight, their son is physically perfect, and, by the age of three, displays the complex problem-solving abilities of a prodigy. Victor Frank is a happy man. He has produced a flawless human being, and that success — plus the subsequently healthy births he has covertly engineered through his obstetrics practice — bodes well for a dazzling professional future.

Then, without warning, VJ’s intelligence level plunges to a point appropriate to his age, but stabilizes. For the moment, Frank can breathe a sigh of relief: Even if VJ is no longer the genius he was, at least he will be normal.

But that relief is tragically short-lived, for all too soon VJ begins to change again. And this time, there is no cause for comfort — only terror.

Mutation is both the spellbinding chronicle of a father pitted against his son in mythic battle and a timely warning to us all. Here is blue-chip Robin Cook, destined to be as controversial as it is compulsively readable.

After a tumultuous year in which her mentor is murdered and her estranged father comes back into her life, Pia Grazdani, the embattled medical student from Death Benefit, decides to take some time off from her medical studies and escape New York City. Intrigued by the promise of the burgeoning field of medical technology and the chance to clear her head in the cool air of Colorado, Pia takes a job at Nano, LLC, a lavishly funded, security-conscious nanotechnology institute in the picturesque foothills of the Rockies. Nano is ahead of the curve in the competitive world of molecular manufacturing, including the construction of microbivores, tiny nano-robots with the ability to gobble up viruses and bacteria.

But the corporate campus, for all its beauty, is a place of secrets. Pia is warned by her boss not to investigate the other work being done at the gigantic facility, nor to ask questions about the source of the seemingly endless capital that funds the institute’s research. And soon after Pia encounters a fellow employee on a corporate jogging path, suffering the effects of a seizure, she realizes she may have literally stumbled upon one of Nano’s human guinea pigs. Is the tech giant on the cusp of one of the biggest medical discoveries of the twenty-first century — a treatment option for millions—or has it already sold out to the highest bidder?

In this exhilarating new medical thriller by bestselling author Robin Cook, fan favorites Jack and Laurie are lured into the dark underbelly of hospital dangers when an internist dies mysteriously.

Colleagues-turned-spouses Dr. Laurie Montgomery and Dr. Jack Stapleton already have their plates full with demanding forensic pathology work and family pressures. The last thing they need is the sudden death of a colleague. Yet when Laurie’s apparently vital and healthy longtime friend Dr. Sue Passero dies mysteriously in the hopsital parking garage, an autopsy is required, and it falls uncomfortably under Laurie’s purview as the chief medical examiner. So when Laurie asks Jack to take special care with the case, he can hardly refuse.

With his curiosity sparked by an inconclusive autopsy, the indefatigable Jack is compelled to resolve the case at hand, and sets out to investigate on-site at Manhattan Memorial Hospital, even though it means blatantly defying the Office of Chief Medical Examiner’s rules. What started out as an inquiry into Sue’s tragic passing soon turns into a deadly and dangerous chess game between Jack and the clever and deranged killer, who might just administer another lethal blow if Jack isn’t careful.

Murder and intrigue reach epidemic proportions when a devastating plague sweeps the country. Dr. Marissa Blumenthal of the Atlanta Centers for Disease Control investigates—and soon uncovers the medical world’s deadliest secret…

Genesis of a PlagueRight now, in a remote corner of rural China, a farmer and his family are sharing their water supply with their livestock: chickens, ducks, pigs, sheep. They share the same waste-disposal system, too.Bird viruses meet their human counterparts in the bloodstreams of the swine, where they mix and mutate before spreading back into the human population. And a new flu is born….Dr. Noah Haldane, of the World Health Organization, knows that humanity is overdue for a new killer flu, like the great influenza pandemic of 1919 that killed more than twenty million people in less than four months. So when a mysterious new strain of flu is reported in the Gansu Province of mainland China, WHO immediately sends a team to investigate. Haldane and his colleagues soon discover that the new disease, dubbed Acute Respiratory Collapse Syndrome, is far more deadly than SARS, killing one in four victims, regardless of their age or health. But even as WHO struggles to contain the outbreak, ARCS is already spreading to Hong Kong, London, and even America.In an age when every single person in the world is connected by three commercial flights or fewer, a killer bug can travel much faster than the flu of 1919.Especially when someone is spreading the virus on purpose…

When an unidentified, seemingly healthy young woman collapses suddenly on the New York City subway and dies upon reaching the hospital, her case is an eerie reminder for veteran medical examiner Jack Stapleton of the 1918 flu pandemic. Fearful of a repeat on the one hundredth anniversary of the nightmarish contagion, Jack autopsies the woman within hours of her demise and discovers some striking anomalies: first, that she has had a heart transplant, and second, that, against all odds, her DNA matches that of the transplanted heart.

Although the facts don’t add up to influenza, Jack must race against the clock to identify the woman and determine what kind of virus could wreak such havoc — a task made more urgent when two other victims succumb to a similar rapid death. But nothing makes sense until his investigation leads him into the fascinating realm of CRISPR/CAS9, a gene-editing biotechnology that’s captured the imagination of the medical community... and the attention of its most unethical members. Drawn into the dark underbelly of the organ transplant market, Jack will come face-to-face with a megalomaniacal businessman willing to risk human lives in order to conquer a lucrative new frontier in medicine — and if Jack’s not careful, the next life lost might be his own.

Two young girls die of a cancer so severe, that only recent exposure to carcinogen can account for it. The Public Health Department fails to trace the source of the carcinogen, so it is up to Dr Michael Neef to try and find the cause of the deadly disease before any more fall victim to it.

When successful neurosurgeon John MacAndrew performs a routine operation to remove a tumour, the patient undergoes a severe personality change post-surgery. Hartman’s Tumour is diagnosed, a rare condition which leaves its victims deranged and destined to be confined to mental institutions. There is no option but to have the patient committed.The patient’s husband blames MacAndrew for the dreadful outcome and sets about to ruin his career. With an uncertain future ahead of him, MacAndrew retreats to his native Scotland to lick his wounds and it there that he makes further discoveries about the mysterious illness and the chemical that induced it.The damage wrought by the chemical affects the brain cells that normally block out a person’s memory of past lives, with the result of the appearance of multiple personality disorder in sufferers. Armed with this knowledge, MacAndrew thinks he may be able to save his patient, until he discovers someone is deliberately using the chemical to regress selected individuals and gain eyewitness accounts of events in the past.

Kay Scarpetta wird von ihrem Nachfolger in Richmond, Virginia, gebeten, bei einem rätselhaften Todesfall zu helfen. Ein vierzehnjähriges Mädchen ist scheinbar ohne erkennbare Ursache gestorben. Hat man bei der Autopsie womöglich etwas übersehen? Scarpetta ist entsetzt über die Schlamperei, die an ihrer alten Wirkungsstätte Einzug gehalten hat. Als sie eine weitere Leiche in Augenschein nimmt, entdeckt sie eine alarmierende Parallele zum Fall des toten Mädchens: feine Spuren von Knochenstaub auf dem Körper. Allem Anschein nach hat der Täter im Krematorium der Gerichtsmedizin gearbeitet …

Used to the sleepy tranquillity of village life in rural Wales, the residents of Felinbach are shocked by the brutal killing of a local baby, Anne-Marie Palmer. None more so than GP Tom Gordon, the only friend left to John Palmer who, faced with irrevocable evidence, stands accused of his daughter’s murder.Just days later Tom is co-opted to investigate the disappearance of the body of a three-month-old cot-death victim from Caernarfon General’s Pathology Department. But the hospital is anxious to keep publicity firmly on their upcoming symposium on in vitro fertilisation, headed by world-renowned specialist Professor Carwyn Thomas, so Tom’s investigations seem thwarted at every turn. That is, until he makes the chilling discovery that Professor Thomas has more than just a passing interest in the murder of little Anne-Marie Palmer... and seems prepared to go to any lengths to stop Tom finding out why.Suddenly a disturbing link between the murder of the Palmer baby, the missing body of a child and the IVF clinic at Caernarfon General begins to emerge. And with John Palmer about to be tried for a murder Tom is sure he didn’t commit, things are starting to look desperate — and dangerous — for all of them.

In his new shocker, the master of the medical gothic creates a monstrous cabal — with a chokehold on mankind’s dearest hope and darkest fear.From Coma to Blindsight, Robin Cook’s unique blend of cutting-edge technology and timeless horror has always enthralled. But rarely have his dramatic gifts been more effectively deployed than in Terminal.Despite a blue-collar background and Irish roots mistrustful of fancy degrees, highly motivated, enormously intelligent Sean Murphy has made it as far as his third year in Harvard’s combined Ph.D./M.D. program when he makes a fateful decision to take a two-month research elective at the renowned Forbes Cancer Center in Miami. Sean is eager to study firsthand the Forbes Center’s remarkable results treating medulloblastoma, a rare form of brain cancer. But his decision is also due, in no small part, to a budding romance with Janet Reardon, a nurse from a privileged and prominent Boston family. Unnerved by Janet’s disturbing allure — and even more, by thoughts of commitment — Sean opts for the safety and distance of the prestigious clinic.But his plans at Forbes go awry from day one. First he is denied the opportunity to work on the medulloblastoma protocol. Then, to his surprise, Janet shows up at the medical center, having accepted a job — ostensibly to further her career but actually to pursue Sean.When a disgruntled Sean appears on the verge of heading home, Janet persuades him to stay by coming up with a plan: The two of them will investigate the medulloblastoma cases surreptitiously, she taking the clinical and he the research. By the time they uncover the truth about the clinic’s seemingly ground-breaking cures, the pair run afoul of the law, their medical colleagues, and — perhaps worst of all — the powerful, enigmatic director of the Forbes Center, Dr. Randolph Mason.Drawing closer together at every hazardous turn, Sean and Janet discover a horror beyond their worst suspicions, one that would make a mockery of the Hippocratic oath. It is a truth so nefarious it could very well wind them up dead.Steeped in the latest discoveries of molecular medicine, reflective of the harsh realities of medical economies, Terminal is Robin Cook at his thrilling, thought-provoking best.

**Fifty years after The Andromeda Strain made Michael Crichton a household name --and spawned a new genre, the technothriller--the threat returns, in a gripping sequel that is terrifyingly realistic and resonant.**

“The Andromeda Strain,” as millions of fans know, described the panicked efforts to stop the spread of an alien microparticle that first turned human blood to sawdust and then dissolved plastics. (Spoiler alert: Humanity survived.) For half a century, a mutated strain has floated harmlessly in Earth’s atmosphere while a special team of watchers maintained Project Eternal Vigilance.When “The Andromeda Evolution” opens, a drone spots a metallic-looking shape growing up out of the Amazon jungle, “the whole of it gleaming like a beetle’s waxy shell in the rising midday sun.” Situated along the equator, this giant structure is located far from any development, deep in an area inhabited only by tribes who have never made contact with modern civilization. Mass spectrometry data taken by military satellites indicates that the quickly swelling mutation is “an almost exact match to the Andromeda strain.”(HarperCollins)

A scientist announces, “There is an alien intelligence behind this,” which I have often thought when I clean out the refrigerator. “We are facing an unknown enemy who is staging an attack over the gulf of a hundred-thousand years and across our solar system and likely the cosmos. This is war.” The ability to fathom this threat is not as crucial as the ability to deliver such lines with a straight face.Wilson suggests that a nuclear strike is problematic because the anomaly is on foreign soil, though such diplomatic awkwardness probably wouldn’t matter if we’re all dead. But the bigger problem is that the anomaly feeds off energy, which a nuclear explosion would provide in abundance. Given that predicament, humanity has just one hope to avoid what the military calls “the ‘gray goo’ scenario” that would kill everyone on Earth: Project Wildfire.The elite Wildfire crew will trudge into the jungle and try to keep the planet from being infected. In accordance with the requirements of the inevitable movie version, the Wildfire team consists of a small group of contentious scientists who are dangerously ill-equipped to trudge into the jungle. Their leader is an interesting character: a woman who rose from the slums of Mumbai to become a world-renowned expert in nanotechnology. But alas, the rest of her crew are drawn from a fetid petri dish of stereotypes: a handsome white man with a tragic connection to the first Andromeda crisis; an Asian woman with a “keen intellect and piercing black eyes” who should not be trusted; and an older black man who offers our hero sage counsel before, sadly, perishing. Naturally, there’s also a villain with special needs motivated by deep-seated rage at her crippled body.Predictable as this group is, their adventure is at least as exciting as Crichton’s original story — and considerably more active. The jungle provides an ominous setting for some spooky scenes. And the episodes set in outer space are particularly thrilling. (Rereading “The Andromeda Strain” last week, I realized that I had forgotten how cramped the story is.)

But “The Andromeda Evolution” genuflects appropriately to the 1969 novel that instantly infected pop culture. With little genetic decay, Wilson replicates Crichton’s tone and tics, particularly his wide-stance mansplaining. Each chapter begins with a quotation by Crichton selected, apparently, for its L. Ron Hubbard-like profundity, e.g. “There is a category of event that, once it occurs, cannot be satisfactorily resolved.” And the pages — sanitized of wit — are larded with lots of Crichtonian technical explanations, weapons porn, top-secret documents and so many acronyms that I began to worry Wilson had accidentally left the caps lock on.As you might expect from a guy with a PhD in robotics, Wilson throws in lots of cool gizmos, too. A slavish flock of miniature drones plays a crucial role in the plot, and a massive technological breakthrough eventually takes center stage. But at other times, Wilson plays too fast and loose with the biological laws of his own pathologic crisis. For instance, as the science team prepares to move deep into the infected jungle, their leader says, “Tuck your pants into your boots and wear gloves” — the same precautions I would take to build a snowman.But who cares? These various lapses may be irritating, but ultimately they don’t derail what is a fairly ingenious adventure. As the story swings from military jargon to corny implausibility, the fate of the Earth hangs from a thread of rapidly mutating cells. Finally, our hero says the words we never tire of hearing: “Technically, it’s doable. It’s insane. But it’s doable.” That portentous claim launches one last spectacular scene that would make Crichton proud.

Dr Steven Dunbar, ex Special Forces medic and chief investigator with the Sci-Med Inspectorate, comes across apparent interference with front-line medical research in the UK. Funding for Professor Dorothy Lindstrom, a leading neuroscientist who has recently returned home to the UK after a tragic fire took the lives of two of her young colleagues at Yale University, has been completely blocked. Professor Lindstrom, a feisty character who has made more than a few enemies over the years, and her research group, who have been making dramatic progress in the new field of epigenetics which deals with genetic influences on human behaviour are upset and angry but feel helpless. One of the group, Dr Owen Barrowman who has been looking for genetic and biochemical differences in convicted psychopathic killers held in secure establishments across the UK is particularly upset as he believes he is on the brink of a major discovery. He is determined to complete his research before the money runs out despite Steven’s warning about the dangers of being continually exposed to evil. His warnings go unheeded with tragic consequences.

In the late 1950's, the CIA, at the height of communist paranoia, established PROJECT MK ULTRA to develop drugs that could be utilized to effectively brainwash foreign enemies. In 1963, the project came to an abrupt halt when several of the CIA's own agents were unwittingly given high doses of LSD at a weekend retreat, and later suffered severe flashbacks, depression, and in one case, suicide as a result.Thirty-five years have transpired since the fateful MK ULTRA project was shut down. A group of zealots, including several of the original participants, now in highly placed government and academic positions, has kept the program, known as the SIGMA PROJECT, alive. Shifting their focus to the development of highly potent synthetic endorphins and utilizing PET (positron emission tomography) scan technology, they are on the threshold of a major breakthrough in the ability to understand and control the brain's thought processes. And they will let no one get in their way.Dr. Geoffrey Davis, a former medic in the Navy Seals, is the chief resident on the neurosurgery service at the New York Trauma Center. From his first day back on the job after spending a year in the PETronics Research Laboratory of Dr. Josef Balassi, strange events begin unfolding. A crazed janitor, a former head injury patient at the NYTC, explosives in hand, takes a little girl hostage at the Central Park Zoo. A respected Hasidic rabbi opens fire with a machine gun on a crowded subway train. Several of Geoff's patients die under mysterious circumstances while on his neurosurgery service, and key aspects of their medical records, including their PET scans, vanish, leading Geoff inexorably toward the frightening conclusion that all of these events are in some way connected to activities at the NYTC's PETronics Institute.As the deadly conspiracy swirls around him, Geoff becomes increasingly isolated, on the run from the CIA, the police and his own medical staff. At stake is the ability to control the human brain, and Dr. Geoffrey Davis is the only one with the knowledge, courage, and ability to stop THE SIGMA PROJECT!THE ENDORPHIN CONSPIRACY is a first rate medical thriller, a chilling story rooted in today’s medical technology. A breathless ride from start to finish, it’s a novel you won’t want put down until you turn the final page!