Foreign Body - Hardcover

Cook, Robin

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0399155023 ISBN 13: 9780399155024

Publisher: Putnam Adult, 2008

Synopsis

A series of unexplained deaths in foreign hospitals sends an idealistic UCLA medical student on a desperate search for answers in this tale from the master of the medical thriller.
Jennifer Hernandez is a fourth-year medical student at UCLA, just beginning an elective in general surgery, whose world is shattered during a break in an otherwise ordinary day. While relaxing in the surgical lounge of L.A.'s Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, she half listens to a TV segment on medical tourism: first-world citizens traveling to third-world countries for surgery. But when she hears her beloved grandmother's name mentioned, Jennifer's heart nearly stops: the CNN reporter says that Maria Hernandez has died, a day after undergoing a hip replacement in New Delhi's Queen Victoria Hospital.
Maria had raised Jennifer and her brothers from infancy, and the bond between grandmother and granddaughter was unbreakable. Still, the news that Maria traveled to India is a shock to Jennifer, until she realizes that it was the only viable option for the hardworking yet uninsured woman. Devastated, and desperate for answers, Jennifer takes emergency leave from school and heads to India, where relations with local officials go from sympathetic to sour as she pushes for more information. With revelations of other unexplained deaths compounded by pressure from Indian hospital officials for hasty cremations, Jennifer reaches out to her mentor, New York City medical examiner Dr. Laurie Montgomery, who has her own deep connection to Maria.
Laurie, along with her husband, Dr. Jack Stapleton, rushes to the younger woman's side, and discovers a sophisticated medical facility with little margin for error. As the death count grows, so do the questions, leading Laurie and Jennifer to unveil a sinister, multilayered conspiracy of global proportions.

About this title

About the Author

Dr. Robin Cook is the author of thirty previous books, most recently Nano, and is credited with popularizing the medical thriller with his wildly successful first novel, Coma. He divides his time between Boston and Florida. His most recent bestsellers include Death Benefit, Cure, and Intervention.

Reviews

Bestseller Cook (Critical) stumbles in this formulaic thriller about the timely subject of medical tourism, the trend in which U.S. citizens seek to save costs on expensive surgery through treatment overseas. At the center of the drama is Jennifer Hernandez, a fourth-year medical student at UCLA, whose grandmother has died in a New Delhi hospital following hip replacement surgery. Suspicious about the circumstances, Hernandez immediately flies to India to investigate. There she not only discovers a number of similar deaths of U.S. citizens but also runs into the one-two punch of a desperate Indian medical industry struggling to block all publicity about the deaths and a huge American HMO that wants nothing more than the widest exposure of the apparent medical missteps in the Third World. Implausible plot twists, unconvincing villains, silly dialogue and a convenient, all-too-happy ending make this one of Cook's rare weak efforts. (Aug.)
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Medical-thriller writer Cook has made a tidy sum scaring the bejesus out of his readers with medical catastrophes ranging from Coma (1977) to Seizure (2003). His latest homes in on the phenomenon of medical tourism, a new trend that sees many U.S. citizens traveling to foreign hospitals to obtain low-cost surgical procedures, often spending their recovery time in five-star resorts. Unfortunately for the three victims here, it’s not a five-star resort but a cafeteria freezer that is their resting place after three routine surgeries done in New Delhi, India, produce fatal results. One of the victims is the grandmother of Jennifer Hernandez, a UCLA medical student who is resisting pressure to have her relative cremated. The fact that her grandmother’s death was publicized on CNN before the hospital even contacted the family has made Jennifer suspicious. She turns to forensic experts Drs. Laurie Montgomery and Jack Stapleton (last seen in Critical, 2007), who quickly determine the best way to bypass India’s corrupt police force, perform an illegal autopsy, and figure who has the prime motive for sabotaging India’s burgeoning medical-tourism industry. Cook’s clever concept is undermined by the wooden characters, but what is most in need of resuscitation here is the painfully awkward dialogue. Still, this is an easy read that offers good background detail on India in addition to the medical drama and should appeal to the author’s many fans. --Joanne Wilkinson

Edition details

• Publisher: Putnam Adult
• Publication date: 2008
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0399155023
• ISBN 13: 9780399155024
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 448