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Contagion
by: Robin Cook

Off The Bookshelf's Price: $7.99

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Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780425155943
ISBN: 0425155943
Label: Berkley
Manufacturer: Berkley
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 496
Publication Date: December 01, 1996
Publisher: Berkley
Studio: Berkley
Sales Rank: 346949

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Editorial Review:

Product Description:
Robin Cook's most frightening bestseller is "exciting...a good, fast read."(Denver Post)

One of Cook's most successful-and timely-bestsellers. Contagion is a terrifying cautionary tale for the millennium as a deadly epidemic is spread not merely by microbes-but by sabotage.

Amazon.com Review:
When not one but three different extremely rare diseases kill several patients at a New York hospital, forensic pathologist Jack Stapleton suspects it's more than just coincidence. He thinks there's a connection between the appearance of the mysterious microbes responsible for the deaths and the HMO that owns the hospital--the same HMO that once destroyed his flourishing medical practice. Is Americare deliberately killing off its sickest patients--those who cost the most money to treat? Or is there an even more sinister motive behind the strange goings-on at Manhattan General, not to mention the attempts on Jack's life? And what is beautiful Terese Hagen, the hard-driving creative director of a Madison Avenue ad agency, doing in the middle of this slightly muddled, but still engrossing, tale of greed, medicine, and mayhem? Like Michael Crichton, whose Andromeda Strain remains the classic in the genre, Cook is sometimes heavy-handed when it comes to character development, and his fulminations about the dangers of managed care often get in the way of the plot. Still, Contagion will make you think twice about taking your next case of flu to the ER instead of your own bed. --Jane Adams

Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- Do Not Go To Manahattan General If You Want To Live!
After loosing his ophthalmology career to health care giant AmeriCare, Dr. Jack Stapleton turns to a career as a forensic pathologist. It is a routine day a work for the ME until a body arrives in the cold room that had died of a strange disease. After examining the body, Jack comes to the conclusion that the person has died of the plague. He then goes to Manhattan General Hospital where the body came from to let them know of his finding. Ironically, the hospital is owned by AmeriCare, the health care giant that took his first career from him. Eventually, after many diagnoses of even stranger and rarer infectious diseases and a few threats on his life, Jack decides to once again go back to Manhattan General where he is not welcome to investagate these strange and highley uncommon diseases. ... Read More

Rating:

- Not Cook's Best By Far
This was one of those books that I just could not finish. I skimmed through the last 100 pages just to get a general idea of how the story ended. I agree with many other readers here that the plot lines are just totally implausible (I live in a small midwest town and even I know gang members do NOT talk or act like that) and the dialog is extremely leaden and awkward. Robin Cook has written much better books than this!

Rating:

- An Interesting Medical Thriller
Personally, I quite enjoy reading Medical Thrillers and would say that Contagion was a fun read. The plot and the characters are well built and the story moves on an interesting pace. Although at times I got a little lost due to the Medical Jargons and reference to specific bacteria, I never lost track of the plot and enjoyed the book from front to back. Would definitely recommend this book.

Rating:

- Overly long story
I agree that this is a good medical thriller. But the story is too long. Too many diseases, too many deaths in the same manner. And at three quarters of it you know where does the diseases came from, so that make the reading a little heavy because you know that whatever they thought about the diseases is wrong. I don't know why, but 90% of RC's books are against Medicare or another Health Organization so I think that maybe RC started writing because he had a problem with one of these Organizations.
Taking my jest apart, is a very readable book.

Rating:

- Some HMOs are just Murder?
Manhatten General Hospital seems to be a dangerous place to be hospitalized in. During a ninety-six hour period nine people have succumbed to not one, not two but three extremely rare diseases, especially for New York City. Jack Stapleton is the New York city Medical Examiner who discovered these occurrences in the course of performing autopsies upon the victims and while no one has questioned the natural occurrence of these deadly, highly infectious diseases, Jack eventually comes to the conclusion that these events are too much of a coincidence to be accidental.

Contagion was written by a prolific writer named Robin Cook. If you are not familiar with Cook you should be. He is the unquestioned king of the medical mystery/suspense genre, having written well over twenty such books, ... Read More

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