Crisis [Large Print] [Hardcover]

Robin Cook (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 2006

The inventor of the medical thriller shows us a healer's dark side: the terrifying story of a doctor who plunges into a web of corruption and lies. The inventor of the medical thriller shows us a healer's dark side: the terrifying story of a doctor who plunges into a web of corruption and lies.

Unabridged CDs - 14 CDs, 16 hours

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Guidall's experienced reading brings a pleasant touch of class to Cook's latest thriller. A distinguished and self-confident physician, Craig Bowman is delivered an ego-shattering blow when he is sued for malpractice by the husband of one of his patients, hypochondriac Patience Stanhope, who died while under his care. The trial takes up the bulk of this wordy novel. Bowman's wife asks her brother, medical examiner Dr. Jack Stapleton, to use his expertise to help with her husband's defense. Stapleton agrees, but what should be a routine forensic exercise quickly turns into a dangerous trail of lies, deception and murder. While it takes some time to get to the story's climax, Cook eventually ties up all the loose ends, although the denouement feels more gimmicky than surprising. Guidall exhibits admirable vocal talents as he manages to keep this overwritten novel moving at a satisfying pace, and the ease with which he works his way through the mounds of legal and medical jargon throughout the book is a testament to his skill as a narrator. Fans of Cook's writing should enjoy this dignified presentation.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Medical-thriller writer Cook's latest page-turner is played out more in the courtroom than in the hospital. Dr. Craig Bowman is irritated when problem-patient Patience Stanhope calls him on what he assumes is yet another false alarm. But Craig makes a house call and discovers Patience near death. He rushes her to the hospital but not in time to save her, and the result is a malpractice suit that could cost Craig his livelihood. Alexis, the wife Craig recently reunited with, calls her brother, New York City medical examiner Jack Stapleton (last seen in Marker, 2005), and asks him to come to Boston for advice. Jack, who is less than a week away from his wedding to fellow ME Laurie Montgomery, agrees, despite the fact that he's never liked Craig. But when he travels to Boston and starts to attend Craig's trial, Jack worries that the case is being railroaded by the plaintiff's sleazy lawyer. When Jack performs the autopsy, the results are shocking. Kristine Huntley
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 736 pages
• Publisher: Thorndike Press (August 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786285583
• ISBN-13: 978-0786285587
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.7 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (94 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,232,936 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

57 of 65 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Implausible (And Not Too Thrilling), September 17, 2006

By 

Janet Boyer "Author, Blogger, Mystic" (Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Crisis (Hardcover)

Robin Cook pretty much birthed the "medical thriller" with his book "Coma" paving the way for the likes of Michael Palmer and Tess Gerritsen.

I've been a fan of Cook's for almost 20 years, and was happy to see a new release in the stores. I rarely buy hardcover fiction, but chose to purchase Crisis.

Let me just say that had I got this from the library, I would have returned it within the first few chapters. But, since I had bought it, I felt obligated to finish it.

More legal drama than medical thriller, a familiar cast of characters pop up in Crisis--namely, Dr. Jack Stapleton, his fiance, Dr. Laurie Montgomery, and other colleagues/friends from the NYC area.

One of the first things I noticed about this book was the implausible dialgue, especially between Jack and his sister, Alexis. Upon Jack's arrival, she comments that he looks "...hale, hungry, and hollow-cheeked, like an actor in a spaghetti western".

No matter how 'intellectual' a person is (Alexis is a psychologist), I can't imagine a brother and sister talking this way! And Jack's dialogue was formal, too, with a bunch of medical jargon thrown in.

Crisis quickly turns into a legal drama (something I do NOT like to read), with drawn-out courtroom "objections" and "sustained" and so on.

And Laurie? She is constantly reprimanding Jack in this book--much more a mother figure than a fiance. I was hoping that Jack would hook up with Dr. Latasha Wylie and dump Laurie! I mean, Jack *dreads* Laurie's whining and scolding, so he procrastinates in calling her...but he and Latasha share a comfortable rhythm (when doing an autopsy) and enthusiasm.

But alas, it didn't happen...

The ending was very anti-climatic, and somewhat disturbing. Spoiler alert: I was amazed that no one considered Dr. Craig Bowman a murderer! In fact, both Jack AND his sister (Craig's wife) "felt sorry for him (Craig)"! And, while on honeymoon, Jack relates to his new wife Laurie the whole situation that occurred in Boston. Laurie was sympathetic to everyone (including Craig), calling the murder "an American medical tragedy".

Cook insistently implies that the American medical system is to blame for spawning narcissistic doctors (even murderous ones). Hello?! Oh...poor Dr. Bowman. He was the son of a working class guy, worked his butt off, lives in a million dollar + home, and now he's been sued for malpractice. Boohoo! Except, there wasn't malpractice for negligence--it was premeditated murder!

And the fact that Laurie and Jack picked Cuba for a honeymoon (?!) was unbelievable--let alone running into Craig there! (And he didn't even act like he recognized Jack? And this overachieving "dedicated doctor" runs from the law, heads to Cuba, gets a Latin babe on his arm, and just chills on the beach? Come on!)

As always, Cook offers an Author's Note where he beats the drum of one of his pet peeves. (In this case, concierge medicine). Like, what can *most* Americans possibly do in this particular situation? Many of us don't even HAVE health insurance...and would be glad to even have an HMO!

Unfortunately, Crisis is a (very) forgettable book. The red herring (Tony Fasano and company) doesn't even make sense, there was a lot of attention to unnecessary detail, and the plot/characters were NOT thrilling in the least. (Sorry--Jack racing the clock to make his own wedding doesn't count as a thrill for me. As I mentioned, I was hoping he'd hook up with Dr. Wylie!) Also, there was a good many errors in the book (such as missing quotation marks and so on).

I hope that Robin Cook goes back to the way he *used* to write. His past books were enough to keep me up all night--leaving me eagerly anticipating the next one.

30 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Started out well, but didn't finish in the same fashion..., October 16, 2006

By 

Thomas Duff "Duffbert" (Portland, OR United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Crisis (Hardcover)

I seem to have this love/hate relationship with Robin Cook titles. His latest, Crisis, is no different. On one hand, I like a good medical thriller, and generally the overall plot of Crisis, isn't bad. On the other hand, I get really tired of the incessant flogging of the "evil" insurance companies. Couple that with an ending here that left me scratching my head, and I'm not real sure I'd recommend the time commitment on this one.

Jack Stapleton, a medical examiner from prior novels, is preparing for his wedding. But within the final week, he gets a call from his sister in Boston. Her husband, Dr. Craig Bowman, has been hit with a malpractice suit as part of his concierge medical practice. An older hypochondriac patient died of an apparent heart attack, and Bowman was unable to resuscitate her. The "grieving" husband filed suit, and Bowman is spiraling off the deep end with depression, anger, and indignation. The sister wants Jack to lend some moral support and see if there's anything that could indicate that Bowman shouldn't be found guilty, and Jack reluctantly agrees (knowing the wedding is fast approaching). The court case is made even more difficult in that Bowman was separated from his wife at the time, living with his office assistant, labeled this particular patient as a "problem patient" in his files, and made some very derogatory statements about the deceased which came out at trial. Jack wonders if some of the symptoms point to another cause of death, and attempts to get permission to exhume the body and perform an autopsy. But certain parties have made it very clear that they do *not* want an autopsy, and they're willing to go to extreme measures to prevent it. Of course, Jack digs in, races against time, and discovers some facts that change the entire death scene...

When I started Crisis, I thought it was going to be pretty good. Suspense, personal drama, a little seediness thrown in... But the longer I went, the tougher it was to stay involved. You knew there were outside forces that factored in, but the direction of the plotline didn't make sense. There were long chunks of time in the story that were just skipped in order to advance the story, and it wasn't always easy to make that chronological jump. And finally, the ending just flat out failed. Not only did it not make a lot of sense, it also left all the other plotlines suspended in mid-air. It's not hard to imagine that a deadline was approaching and the author hadn't quite figured out how wrap up the story gracefully...

As "full disclosure", I'll state that I work for an "evil" insurance company, so I might be predisposed to having an attitude about his characterizations. But that aside, an experienced author such as Cook should have done much better, especially at the end.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Ugh... disappointing and unbelievable, December 22, 2006

By 

Book Lover (Virginia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Crisis (Hardcover)

I sometimes wonder if Robin Cook is actually a pen name for two or more writers... sometimes Cook's books are quite good; sometimes they're dreadful. Unfortunately, this one is painfully bad: Unrealistic, stilted dialogue and boring storyline. I couldn't even finish the book - and that's unusual for me. I'm usually driven to at least see how the story ends. This one was so badly written I had to put it down. Do yourself a favor and skip this one.