Cook, Robin

(US, 1940– )

Dr Robin Cook is a graduate of the Columbia University medical school and is renowned for his best-selling medical thrillers. In Vital Signs (1991) two women desperate to have children explore the brave new world of reproductive technology and encounter unethical practices and dangerous forces. In Terminal (1993) a medical student at the Forbes Cancer Center finds that unsettling evidence of illegal activity lurks behind the clinic's excellent record in curing brain cancer. Acceptable Risk (1995) turns to the search for new wonder drugs and the devastating side-effects that can be unleashed; and in Toxin (1998) when a child dies of food-poisoning after visiting her favourite fast-food outlet her father tries to establish how it could have happened, and finds himself up against the corporate might and vested interests of the food industry. The books are well-paced and gripping with twists and cliffhangers a-plenty.

Michael Crichton, John Grisham  CS