Customer Reviews

Fatal Cure

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

This was the first book by Robin Cook I ever read. I have Cystic Fibrosis, so I was immediately drawn to that as part of the subject, and decided to give this "new" (to me) author a chance! I have enjoyed reading Robin Cook ever since, and I am now on Sphinx... which unfortunately is the last one unread for me! Hurry up and write more, Dr. Cook! :-)

As a healthcare professional for nearly 28 years, I find Cook's portrayal of the modern day HMO very scary, yet real. I have seen what 'cost containment' can do in real life and this scenario is not beyond the realm of possibility. Cook keeps you on the edge of your seat throughout the book. I could not put it down

As a healthcare professional, Robin Cook's books are
chillingly realistic. Throughout the book I kept telling
myself,"this could never happen". As we recall how bizarre
and unrealistic George Orwell's "1984" seemed initially and
now realize we are living very similar with little more
than a nod of oddity.

Dr David Wilson and his wife Angela Wilson(also a doctor) seek employment at Bartlet Community Hospital,Bartlet desiring to live a quiet and peaceful life in the countryside away from the hustle and bustle of Boston only to find out later that Bartlet is not the mini-heaven they had made it out to be.For Bartlet Community Hospital is a place where people are actually killed by radiation ! This time Cook has truely constructed a horrifying piece of fiction which seems easily possible in reality,considering the technological progress made by this world.Gawd !! I would be real scared to be hospitalized after reading this book.

Fatal Cure is Robin Cook's most controversial book ever written about the darker side of managed health care in America. A married couple start a hospital business where they can treat several patients in a day, including their daughter who suffers from crystic fibrosis. For awhile, it works until their patients begin to die and when a dead body is discovered is their basement, they begin to lose popularity. A very suspensful book, this could actually happen. Overall, a good book!

I enjoyed it greatly. It was a great tapebook, which had a manageable number of characters to keep up with, and a nice weave of stories linking them to the storyline. The conclusion as to the "fatal cure" was something I had long figured out before the somewhat dim-witted physician family around which the story swirled. I agree that the child proved to be the bright light in a gloomy town. I'm dropping my HMO as quickly as I can!

"Fatal Cure" is a quick read. There's no depth of character to slow the reader; but the plot weaves as pages turn. Dr. Angela Wilson is a pathologist who does not like her boss touching her on the derriere or pulling her onto his lap for a peek at the microscope, a scientific lap dance. When she complains about sexual harassment, her boss suddenly gets upset with her. Then when a dead body of the former hospital administrator is found in her basement requiring continual absences from work, she gets fired! Where is CSI Vermont!?! ... This book was fun because something was always happening. It was also frustrating because the characters lacked perception. This is a fast read that's fiction's nutritional equivalent to cotton candy. A definite maybe!

This is an unbelievably bad book. The story, including the identity of the villain, is obvious within the first chapters. The characters, dialogue and situations are so unbelivable as to be ridiculous. If the protagonists in this story graduated from medical school, I might consider sending my hamster, because they seem to have about an equal intelligence level. David and Angela should have figured this whole mess out even before I did, but they were too busy listening to their daughter's improbable dialogue, answering her with trite, cutesy nonsense, and putting her into situations that should have made them lose their parenting privileges. Cook should leave polemics about HMOs to the analysts and concentrate on basic writing techniques - plot, character development and dialogue.

This is the kind of books that I like of Dr. Cook, of course I am not a doctor so I don't understand many things about medicine, but this book is definitely a medical thrillers, and as all of his books you will think twice before you go to a doctor or a hospital.
The story of the hospital that want to save money instead of save patients is not out of reality, in other words I can believe that these things could happened in a small town or a place that have not too many hospitals.
It has one or two mistakes with their daughter, but that doesn't mean that it couldn't be real.

This book deals with the exciting lives of two doctors and their ill daughter, who move to a new community only to find a dead body in their new house and a town full of secrets. This was a extremely interesting book, with intricate details and an exciting plot. The only drawback to the book was the length. Although the book remained exciting throughout the book, the end could have been tightened to remove unneccesary and sometimes boring information. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the medical field, or anyone who enjoys a good murder mystery!