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- $8.99
Publisher Description
The inventor of the medical thriller shows the profession’s dark side: the terrifying story of a doctor who is sucked into the maelstrom of the current medical malpractice crisis.
When Boston-based Dr. Craig Bowman is served with a summons for medical negligence, he’s shocked, enraged, and more than a little humiliated. A devoted physician who has endured grueling years of training and worked continuously in the service of others, he is now a partner in an exclusive concierge medical practice. No longer forced to see more and more patients while spending less and less time with each one just to keep his office door open, he provides the kind of medical care he has been prepared to do, lavishing twenty-four-hour availability and personalized attention on his handpicked patients. And at last he is earning a significant income, no longer facing decreased reimbursements from insurance companies. But this idyllic situation comes to a grinding halt one sunny afternoon—and things get much, much worse.
Enter Dr. Jack Stapleton, a medical examiner in New York City and Bowman’s brother-in-law: Jack’s sister Alexis—now Bowman’s estranged wife—begs for his help as her husband’s trial drags on. Jack agrees to travel to Boston to offer his forensic services and expert-witness experience to Craig’s beleaguered defense attorney. But when Jack’s irreverent suggestion to exhume the corpse and thereby disprove the alleged malpractice is taken seriously, he opens a Pandora’s box of trouble. As Craig’s life and career are put on the line, Jack is on the verge of making a most unwelcome discovery, of tremendous legal and medical significance—and there are people who will do anything to keep him from learning the truth.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Bestseller Cook's latest medical thriller focuses on a timely topic the new and controversial "concierge" medicine that caters to the affluent willing and able to pay for special attention. When Patience Stanhope, a hypochondriac patient of Boston physician Craig Bowman, dies of a heart attack, her husband sues Bowman for malpractice. The suit alleges that the delay caused by Bowman's paying a house call instead of ordering Patience immediately to the hospital was fatal. After the trial gets off to a rocky start for Bowman, his wife calls in her brother, Dr. Jack Stapleton, a New York City medical examiner, who has appeared in Marker (2005) and other Cook novels. Some anomalies in the medical evidence lead Stapleton, who's worried about getting back to New York in time for his wedding, to attempt a rush autopsy of the dead woman. The choice to reveal early on that Bowman and Stapleton will become bitter enemies lessens the suspense, while at the climax Stapleton's failure to realize he can take a train or bus after he's missed the last shuttle back to New York will annoy some. Still, most readers should enjoy the ride.
Customer Reviews
Wonderful!!
Great read!! What a surprise ending!! Robin Cook never fails to deliver an enjoyable experience.