Book Reviews of Fatal Cure

Very frightening book about the world of HMOs. Slow start, but picked up halfway through and went screechingly fast at the end.

Cook's medical thriller genre mires down in this offering as the author repeatedly drags in his soapbox to lecture the reader about the evils of managed care. There's a pretty good story here, but Cook won't get out of his own way and let it unfold. (He also needs to hire a copy editor who knows the difference between a shotgun and a rifle.)

This Robin Cook medical thriller kept me reading until I finished the book. A look at managed care that manages to murder.

Cook, bestselling medical suspense author does it again...healthcare reform, murder and deadly irradiation combine to propel you along the gruesome corridors of a community hospital with a horrific twist.

Recent medical school graduates David and Angela Wilson find the perfect setting for both their careers and family in rural Bartlet, Vermont. Not even the recent suicide and disappearance of two other physicians dampen their enthusiasm as they begin their jobs and buy their dream house. David's confidence is soon shaken, however, as his patients begin dying-not from their terminal diseases but from a mysterious illness. The deaths, coupled with attacks in the hospital parking lot, give the Wilsons the uneasy feeling that Bartlet is not what it seems. When a gruesome discovery prompts the Wilsons to hire a private investigator, the lives of several patients-and they themselves-are in danger.

From Publishers Weekly: "...Idealistic young doctors David and Angela Wilson take positions at a state-of-the-art medical center in a small Vermont town partly because they see it as an ideal spot for their daughter, who suffers from cystic fibrosis. But the town is not as idyllic as it seems, and the hospital is in a desperate financial bind due primarily to its contract with a local HMO, David's new employer. Worse still, patients are dying unexpectedly almost daily, and no one seems to care very much. The deaths are not normal, of course, and astute readers will quickly determine who is behind them, why and--most likely--how. Cook raises troubling questions about the conflicts between medical and financial priorities in managed care (albeit in a somewhat distorted fashion..." Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club main selection; Mystery Guild alternate; Reader's Digest Condensed Book.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --

Hard book to put down

Great medical thriller!!

Murder and mystery reach epidemic proportions when a devasting plague sweeps the country....

Excellent book. Nice combination of medical intrigue and emotional developement of characters.

It will scare you out of going to the emergency room~

Typical Cook. If you like him, you'll enjoy this one.

Controversial thriller about the health-care reform in America.

Exciting

loved it

I am a huge Cook fan so I held out and made it through the beginning which was very slow. After that the plot does pick up pace but the characters are not well developed but overall the book was well written and it made for an easy read.

With the state-of-art facility and peaceful Vermont setting, the Bartlet Community Hospital seems like a dream come true. It offered doctors David and Angela Wilson new career opportunities, a chance to work within an enlightened system of "managed care"- and a perfect place to raise their daughter, who suffers from cystic fibrosis. But then, one by one, their dreams turned to nightmares. And day by day, their patients begin to die.