Toxin [Hardcover]

Robin Cook (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 23, 1998

Newly divorced surgeon Dr. Kim Regis is determined to remain a good father to his only son, Selden. On a special night out, Kim takes Seldon to his favorite fast-food restaurant for a feast of burgers and fries. But the good time turns to tragedy: the young boy becomes gravely ill and dies as a result of poisoning by E. coli. bacteria found in the meat. Was Seldon's death a result of shoddy food-handling practices? Or was it a sophisticated case of product tampering - by a rival fast-foot giant or a disgruntled employee? Or perhaps by someone with a score to settle with Kim? Taking a leave from his surgical practice, Kim devotes his energies to solving the mystery full time. But he immediately hits a brick walls: a code of silence more impenetrable than anything he has ever encountered in his medical career. Instead of a cold-shoulder reception, however, Kim is soon met with a boot and a fist as thugs attempt to quash his inquiry. Aided by his ex-wife, Kim pursues a trail of deadly evidence, uncovering complicity and guilt stretching from the slaughterhouse floor to the corporate boardroom. Racing against time before more are poisoned, the two come face-to-face with the shocking and elusive truth. And in their life-and-death search for answers, they rediscover the reasons they first fell in love. With trademark pulse-pounding flair, Robin Cook delivers a cutting-edge thriller, borrowing from today's fears and tomorrow's medical technology.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Just when you thought it was safe to eat a hamburger again, Robin Cook--master of medical mysteries, deadly epidemics, and creepy comas--returns with an all too likely villain drawn right from current headlines: the American meat industry. If you've ever wondered where the E. coli bacteria comes from, and exactly how it can ravage the human body, destroying everything in its path, this is the book for you. As usual, Cook delivers solid information, well-researched medical arcana, and a scathing indictment of managed health care.

His protagonist, Kim Regis, is an all-too-typical ego-driven surgeon, whose arrogance and invulnerability set him up to be brought low by the deadly toxin that takes the life of his young daughter. Sparing no time and barely a paragraph to reflect on his loss, Regis goes right after the culprit, a meat-packing behemoth that brings dead and diseased animals to the slaughterhouse, breaking every health regulation in the book. The scenes set on the killing floor and in the boning rooms will make a vegetarian out of the most confirmed red-meat eater. Toxin is a heart-pounding thriller that hits very close to home. --Jane Adams --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

From Library Journal

Cook cooks up another medical thriller, with a bunch of E.coli bacteria as villain, an underdone hamburger as murder weapon, and a little boy as victim. His doctor-father soon discovers that something far more sinister than bad hygiene is the cause. A Literary Guild, Doubleday Book Club, and Mystery Guild main selection.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 356 pages
• Publisher: Putnam Adult; 1ST edition (March 23, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0399143165
• ISBN-13: 978-0399143168
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (276 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,115,616 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Doctor and author Robin Cook is widely credited with introducing the word 'medical' to the thriller genre, and over twenty years after the publication of his breakthrough novel, Coma, he continues to dominate the category he created. Cook has successfully combined medical fact with fantasy to produce a over twenty-seven international bestsellers, including Outbreak (1987), Terminal (1993), Contagion (1996), Chromosome 6 (1997) and Foreign Body (2008).

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Pretty good, but the ending made me throw the book down!, February 22, 2000

By 

George Marzloff (Jersey) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Toxin (Paperback)

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.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Bad meat, bad writing, May 3, 1998

By 

Randolph Marcus - See all my reviews

This review is from: Toxin (Hardcover)

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.

11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Tells the Truth in an Engrossing Manner, October 6, 2000

By 

Robert D. Steele (Oakton, VA United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Toxin (Paperback)

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.