With his latest novel, Cook continues his string of stories about Jack Stapleton and Laurie Montgomery, medical examiners in New York City. In Marker, the mystery begins when Laurie posts two bodies on consecutive days that have no obvious pathology. Both were young and seemingly healthy, the only strange circumstance being they were recovering from routine surgeries at Manhattan General Hospital. Laurie puts these two cases together with a couple other cases that had come in the week before, and this gets here interest up. When two more cases come in, she is totally convinced that there is homicide at the root of these mysterious deaths.Meanwhile, Laurie and Jack's personal relationship has come to a standstill. Jack is unable to commit, and Laurie breaks things off. Into the void left by Jack, she puts a relationship with Roger Rousseau, the chief of medicine at Manhattan General. They met while Laurie was filling him in on the series of suspicious deaths, in hopes that Manhattan General may be able to do something to identify the problem, or at least take some action to prevent future deaths. But things don't get too far before she discovers that she is pregnant with Jack's baby.The case heats up when another group of suspicious cases comes in to the medical examiner's office. Laure has been able to connect the deaths to a group of six cases from the previous fall at another AmeriCare (managed care) hospital across town. None of the deaths had any obvious cause, and none had any sign of foul play on the toxicology screens. Laurie talks Roger into checking into personell reports from Manhattan General and the other AmeriCare hospital to see about personell that overlap with the two time frames, and who worked the night shift, when all of the deaths occurred. Roger is able to work up a list of possible suspects, but after leaving Laurie a message about some of his findings, he meets a sudden death at the hand of the killer.Laurie is working hard to put all of the pieces together to come up with a cause of death and also a common thread that may establish motive. And though she continues to have no luck on cause, she notices that all of the patients had a genetics screening test along with their admit labs, and though the results had been removed from the paper records, all had some type of positive result in their electronic files. But just as she is putting some of the key ideas together, she begins suffering from serious obdominal pain, and a quick phone call to her doctor confirms that her pregnancy is in serious trouble, and suspecting a ruptured ectopic pregnancy, she is rushed to the emergency room at Manhattan General. But Laurie is now concerned that she may be the next victim in her own series, as she fits the profile: a young, healthy, post-operative patient, who is positive for a marker, a gene mutation that marks a predisposition to serious health issues (she has found out she has the BRCA1 marker, for the mutated gene that increases risk of breast cancer). Jack rushes over to be with her, and her surgery to repair the ruptured ectopic pregnancy goes routinely. And her recovery starts off routinely, but a rush of patients means she is moved from the recovery floor to a regular floor, where many of the deaths occur. Jack meanwhile has left to run down some leads, and figures out the mode behind the killings, the administration of a lethal does of potassium, a naturally occuring ion in the body. Potassium causes an imbalance of chemicals in the muscles and causes immediate cardiac arrest, but it is difficult to detect on autopsy because it naturally occurs in the body and is naturally released from the muscles upon death, meaning the level is usually elevated after death, therefore masking the lethal injection.Jack returns to the hospital and rushes to Laurie's room, to discover a nurse (named Jazz) standing over her, and her vital signs rapidly declining. He calls a code, and informs the attending cardiologist that she has high potassium level, allowing them to administer a counteragent and bring her back from cardiac arrest. Jack follows Jazz out after her shift to confront her, since she is one of the suspects already and her presence in the room just confirms his suspicion. But when he gets to her car, she is shot by someone lurking in her back seat.Detective Lou Soldano, a police detective and friend of Jack and Laurie, helps to piece the details together. Jazz was one of a number of operatives across the country for a group that was working in conjunction with AmeriCare (a managed care company) to eliminate patients who tested positive for gene mutations linked to expensive diseases, such as cancer. The company had realized that Jazz was in danger of being discovered, and wanted to tie up their loose ends, but Jack and Laurie got there first.As he often does, Cook has woven a good story together with some thoughtful issues that deserve attention. What does the mapping of the human genome mean for the future of medical care. Obviously it holds great promise for identifying causes and possible solutions for many genetically influenced dieseases, but there is also great danger, reminiscent of the movie Gattica, in misusing this knowledge. These are issues we must face in the coming years as we come to terms with new technologies and their ethical implications.
Jack Stapleton & Laurie Montgomery are back in another medical thriller. Robin Cook has outdone himself with this story. The characters were very much real and believeable right down to Jack's jealous streak and passive-aggressive behaviour which almost ruins his relationship with Laurie as her friend. While you don't expect Jack to behave in that manner, especially since he is one of the spotlight cast members of the novel, if you think about it, his reaction was only human and anyone of us would probably done the same thing. The main antagonist was a female who was obviously a psychopath. She had not formed any social ties with her workmates or with people in her gym and lead a solitary life. She scorned at following simple rules such as paying for her groceries and would have rather murdered the storeowner when he caught her than pay the tab, had it not been for a sudden and welcome diversion by way of her mobile phone. Cook wrote this character particularly well, or so I thought. I could not put this book down. The story was rivetting and the plot page turning. The begining of the story starts out as Cook describes the cellular and molecular activities of the beginnings of life in one person and the eventual death of another. The whole events are beautifully worded and equate to a symphony and dance at the microscopic level.The plot starts when Laurie suspects something strange after two seemingly healthy (apart from the minor surgery they underwent) individuals die from no apparent reason post-op. Her sluething for answers uncovers several more cases as well as similar cases in another hospital. Of course, the simple storyline about healthy patients in hospitals mysteriously dying (with suspicions pointing to a serial killer medical staff) has been done to death (no pun intended) both, in real life as well as in novels. But Cook knows how to make this into a page turning, edge-of-the-seat, spine-tingling thriller. The crux of the story dealth with the human genome and its implication to health insurance. Insurance is basically a gamble. But if we unlock our genes and know in advance what ailments we are prone to, then the gamble becomes almost a sure thing. And it was the way in which higher-ups in the medical field and health insurance were takling this problem that rounds up the storyline.
What do You think about Marker (2006)?
(unabridged audiobook read by George Guidall): Healthy patients are dying mysteriously, and medical examiners Laurie Montgomery and Jack Stapleton are on the case. I liked the plot - I wasn't able to guess the twists ahead of time and I learned a bit about medicine and the medical industry in the process - but some of the language got a little tedious. Perhaps doctors are different, but ordinary people do not regularly use that many four-syllable words per sentence. Cook also has an irritating habit of using "questioned" instead of "asked", and having a character get impatient at the silence should there be a pause in the narration for a brief bit of description. Taking in someone's appearance does not cause a noticeable lull in conversation. Most people's brains work more quickly than that. Overall, however, it's a pretty good story. I was indeed on the edge of my seat in parts (which is made worse in audiobooks since you can't read faster to get to the resolution), and the ending was mostly satisfying. Not a deep or especially memorable read, but a nice diversion during my daily commute.
—melydia
Robin Cook is my favourite author.Myself find an Extra-satisfactory readability in all his books. Because all of them deal with Health, Health Care, Medical Forensic,Medical(Health) Insurance & Corporate greed which do not consider the life of People, who are their clients.DEATH BENEFIT, his book published in 2011 deals with ORGAN GENESIS & the mystery of murder of a Nobel prize winner Dr.Thobias Rothman and his associate Dr. Yamamotto at the hands of Health Insurance Corporate. MARKER deals with GENOMICS & BIOINFORMATICS.New York City Medical examiners Dr. Laurie & Dr. Jack, confront a series of puzzling hospital deaths of young & healthy patients after undergoing successful treatment. As they proceed with the investigation of their own, Dr. Laurie has stumbled upon the trail of a remarkably clever serial killer - one with a very unusual motive & disturbing ties to both Medical research and the cut & thrust of Modern Health Care.
—Mohandas
Очередной роман серии. На этот раз читала на русском, раз уж перевели.Я бы сказала, что книга неплохая. Ничего выдающегося, но идеальный для серии. Странные случаи смерти, выглядящие как естественные, но повторяющиеся с завидной регулярностью. Очередной этап в отношениях Лори и Джека. Нормальные злодеи и безумная исполнительница.Немного бесило глупое поведение главных героев. Почему Лори не пошла сразу к врачу, дотянула, когда пришлось вызывать "скорую". Да и вообще, как предохраняются два суперпрофессионала? Календарным методом. Ну зашибись, конечно - самый ненадёжный метод. Джек всё ещё не готов к новой семье, хоть они и прожили вместе уже пять лет. А когда он станет готов, когда у Лори настанет климакс? Вообще, надо было давно его отправить к психологу, ибо это ненормально. Он весь такой свободомыслящий и прогрессивный, уважает женщин как коллег и как профессионалов, но при этом испытывает первобытное чувство ответственности за семью, дескать он должен был их защитить от авиакатастрофы, но не мог. И старое доброе лекарство - незапланированная беременность - вылечило его всего за пару дней. Оказалось, что он легко может смириться с мыслью о новой семье. Зачем было терять столько времени тогда? Уныло.Интересно, как автор достаточно оперативно реагирует на новинки в медицине. Здесь он упоминает о расшифровке генома и новых видах диагностики - по маркерам мутантных генов. Недавно мир сотрясла новость о том, что Анжелина Джоли удалила себе "проблемные" органы из-за возможных проблем с наследственностью. Кажется слишком странным и прогрессивным. Однако Кук пишет об этом ещё в 2005 - 10 лет назад. У Лори обнаружена мутация гена, наверно, как у Джоли, и она тоже подумывает о превентивной операции. Кроме того, основной мотив злодейства тоже связан с мутациями, хотя, на мой взгляд, с мотивом Кук перестарался - слишком злодейски, что даже нелепо. Зато острые моменты в конце как всегда хороши (если понимать, какого уровня книга).Главные герои стремительно стареют. Надеюсь, автор уменьшит перерыв между книгами, а то герои выйдут на пенсию раньше, чем серия исчерпает свой финансовый потенциал.
—Kate
