Customer Reviews

Toxin (G K Hall Large Print Book Series)

5 star:		(66)
4 star:		(51)
3 star:		(43)
2 star:		(41)
1 star:		(75)

 

 

This was a good book, but it definitely had three problems. 1- The multi-personality doc was unbelievable, resembling a whiny superhero. 2- The writing was so contrary. Cook has a large vocabulary, even sometimes he's too perfect with the grammar in the conversation. Yet, most of the dialogue is followed by "Tracy said, Reggis said, Tracy said, Becky said, Kelly said". Does Cook know of any other word to use besides "said" after quotation?

And the third problem was the ENDING! It ruined the book AND cost the book two stars on my rating. My hand was turning the pages at a mile a minute and then stopped at the ending. The story just fell into an empty space, not resolving the problem, no conclusion, nothing. UGH! I threw the book down in disgust.

Now you're asking why did I rate it with 3 stars. I couldn't put the book down (until the end, explained earlier). Cook's use of setting, conflict, and description was phenomenal. I really felt like I was in the scenes. The author merged a narrative medical drama with expository information about the steer-to-hamburger process. The "bridge" that melded the two and made the story work was the conflict of: the doctor's attempt to uncover E. Coli contamination versus the USDA and beef industry alliance's attempt to keep the contamination secret, in order to maintain their profits. If an ending was included in the book, it would be worthy of five stars.

This won't be the best book you'll ever read, but it's nonstop action and exploration through the beef industry will make you think next time you take a bite into that Big Mac.

If Cook is trying to elicit support for his contention that the USDA is in bed with an evil meat industry intent on poisoning the public with tainted meat, he should at least take English 101 to learn some writing skills. It's not an easy sell except to alarmists who vow never to eat another hamburger again. He may make readers ill with his description of hamburger processing, but let's be realistic. Billions of burgers are consumed in this country every year and the number of fatal E. Coli victims are miniscule. After all, even Cook attributes the child's illness to one sick cow.

And the insipid high school writing! His dialogues are totally robotic; why do conversations (such as one in an elevator between two doctors) sound like pretensious academic seminars? And can't he find another way to express gut-wrenching grief other than repeating "I'm so sorry" in every discussion about his daughter's illness? The characters are made of genuine cardboard. The supposed "hero," Dr. Regis, is out-of-control idiot, his ex-wife, a psycho-babbling twit. The plot line lacks plausibility; real cardiac surgeons, who probably have some smarts beyond their skillful hands, are unlikely to unilaterally investigate their children's deaths in such a moronic manner.

Cook may have wanted to make a point about laxities in the beef industry. but he should have first read Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" to see what a well-crafted novel really can do to motivate the public. (It ultimately lead to creation of the FDA.) In the meantime, I'll just slap another burger on the grill. Pass the ketchup,please.

If you're the type of person that does not have the time to read Laurie Garrett's BETRAYAL OF TRUST: The Collapse of Global Public Health (Hyperion, 2000), at 754 pages a real challenge, then this book, and the other books in the series, are a very worthwhile means of exploring real truths in an engrossing manner. The fact of the matter is that we are creating an increasingly dangerous environment for ourselves, with cross-contamination, increasingly resistant strains of difficult to diagnose diseases, and so on. The naive will lambast the book for scare-mongering, and they will be wrong--if this book gets you through an airline flight, or an afternoon, and causes you to think just a tiny bit about the reality that we can no longer trust our government to protect the food supply and preparation process, and to think just a tiny bit about how you might protect your children from inadequate "due diligence" by the food service industry, then you will be richly rewarded. The author himself recommends the non-fiction book by Nicols Fox, SPOILED: What is Happening to Our Food Supply and Why We Are Increasingly at Risk (Basic Books, 1997 or Penguin, 1998). The bottom line is that this novel is for serious people, and chillingly worthwhile for those who like to learn while being entertained.

Robin Cook has added to his string of unreadable pseudo-medical alleged thrillers with this polemic against the meat industry and the dangers of fecal contamination of beef. Apparently confusing form with function, Cook has secreted his message in a reeking turd of a book. This stinker displays Cook's stilted and prissy vocabulary and tin ear for dialogue with some memorable lines. At one point the book's macho heart surgeon protagonist, bizarrely named "Kim," reflects on his third encounter with a bargain-basement assasin. He muses, "It's like a nightmare that just keeps going." Another of my favorites is spoken by a fast-food employee who has previously been punched by our hero.

"You're kidding," he blurted. He was genuinely dumbstruck. He had been mad about being struck in the face. Now he felt lucky.

The "author " is unable to craft a plot, construct believable dialogue, or research convincing details. He should avoid writing anything longer than a prescription. If you pass by this piece of excrement in the bookstore, wipe your feet before you get in your car.

I have been reading Robin Cook for many years, some good, some fair but this is the first one that was so poor I couldn't finish it.

I found the actions of the main character so over-the-top as to be cartoonish. 1/3 of the way into the book, there is very little story developed. As other reviewers have pointed out this seems to be more of an attack on the meat industry than anything approaching quality fiction.

My review is of the audio book adaption of TOXIN -- which is terrible. The production is awkward at best. Lots of overly dramatic music and often in inappropriate places. It's almost as though the person responsible for the music wasn't paying attention to the script. It's truly painful.

Besides using exaggeration to the point of absurdity (eg, Americare's unwillingness to treat patients in anything but a robotic, uncaring manner), Cook has not the faintest idea of how parents react to the loss of a child. I have worked in a hospital for over 5 years - I deal daily with the Managed Care fiasco AND families in grief. There was NOTHING realistic about either of the many scenarios he presented. The only reason I gave the book 1 star is the description of meat processing - I am again a vegetarian.

Cardiologist Dr. Kim Reggis picks up his daughter Becky at her mother's place so that the pair can spend the weekend together. Their time together begins by him taking her to her favorite burger joint where she enjoys a gourmet's delight, a fast food meal. Later on that evening, Becky complains of stomach trouble. Kim takes her to her doctor. Following the medical visit, the little girl worsens. Subsequently, he rushes her to the hospital where, shockingly, the little girl falls into a coma and dies.

Kim is stunned and vows to learn what happened to his daughter. He soon discovers that Becky died from contaminated meat. Kim also learns that the government watchdog, the USDA works closely with the beef industry. As he digs deeper, powerful government and private interests try to end his investigation by any means necessary, including murder.

TOXIN is Robin Cook at his absolute best. The one-sitting story line is filled with action that comes out of today's headlines. The characters are genuine and their motives understandable, especially the distraught Kim. Fans of medical thrillers, or anyone who reads this book will think very seriously about turning vegetarian.

Harriet Klausner

After I enjoyed Contagion it's been downhill for Robin Cook. This lame attempt at a social commentary on HMOs and our "unsafe" food supply is so laughable it nearly parodies itself.

The first half of the book rails against the bottom-line mentality of HMOs as Dr. Kim Regis tries to procure treatment for his food poisoned daughter. Memo to Dr. Cook - HMOs cannot deny treatment, they can only deny coverage. They can't forbid a person from seeking and obtaining medical care, they can only decide not to pay for it. It is ridiculous to expect the reader to believe that since his HMO wouldn't cover a particular procedure, a wealthy cardiac surgeon would have no other options. If you're waiting for hours in an emergency room and you're a rich doctor - get in your Lexus and go to a different hospital, or call your internal medicine buddy from med school, or figure it out for yourself. How lame can you get than to think that anyone, let alone a rich doctor, wouldn't think of something to do to improve the situation rather than get mad and threaten the ER staff. If you're rich and your daughter is dying and your HMO won't cover an MRI, go somewhere else and pay for it yourself! It's a free country. If it was just an average Joe the author would have a point. Most people can't afford to pay for an MRI right out of their pocket, but I suspect that "renowned cardiac surgeons" can. And on the food poisoning issue. There was an elaborate series of events that had to simulaneously take place in order to poison the child. 1) The sick cow had to be infected with a particular strain of e. coli, 2) the cow had to be taken to the meat plant instead of the rendering plant, 2) part of the cow had to fall onto the floor during processing, 3) that meat had to be insufficiently cleaned, 4) the meat had to be left in the restaurant freezer too long, and 5) the burger had to be undercooked by an unlucky flip on the grill, 6) the child had to eat the rare burger, 7) the renowned cardiac surgeon had to encourarge the child the eat the burger after the child pointed out that it was undercooked. If you remove any one of these steps you've got a non-issue. Especially if the burger is cooked right. Again, how can the reader be asked to take this "threat" seriously when such a complicated chain of events had to take place in order to create a potentially hazardous situation. There would be a real story if, instead of creating a crisis by multiple chance occurences, everything went by the book from the slaughtering of the cow to the biting of the burger, and the consumer still got sick. That would be a cause for concern - if the system worked as designed and still failed. But the author's argument refutes itself.

This book is a good example of the over-simplified, illogical, group-think that is often appealed to in public safety and investigative reports that often end in over-generalizations and grossly overstated impacts on our everyday lives.

Don't bother wasting your time. The first chapter starts out realistic enough and as the book progresses the characters seem to develop superpowers to conquer the world against the evils of the meat industry. Robin Cook must have copied the pages of his favorite superhero comic book to come up with this garbage. As if it wasn't bad enough, IF you make it to the ending, the book only get worse. I wouldn't even wish this book on my worst enemy.