Marker

exciting trademark medical thriller

Dr. Laurie Montgomery and Dr. Jack Stapleton (see VECTOR) both work for the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner and off duty they are lovers living together although each has kept their own apartment. She wants marriage and children while Jack who lost his family is afraid of a commitment. One morning Laurie wakes up and realizes that at forty three she has very few child bearing years left and breaks it off with Jack. --- She throws herself into her work and she finds the case of a twenty-eight year old man very puzzling. He had a foot injury and died but there is no evidence what caused his death. When a woman who has had knee surgery dies for no apparent reason, Laurie begins to think that the two cases are related. When two more exact cases come in, Laurie begins to believe there is a serial killer operating in Manhattan General. As more cases pile up, the only thing the victims have in common is they were young, healthy and new subscribers to AmeriCare Health Insurance. Laurie investigates off the radar because the powers that be don¿t want to believe her and order her to keep her findings in house. --- Robin Cook has written another exciting trademark medical thriller that includes his opinion on the state of medical care in this country, the nursing shortage and the faults of the health care system which are all woven into a mesmerizing storyline. The heroine feels like the Lone Ranger as she struggles to get someone to listen to her and believe what she is saying. MARKER is another triumph for the grandmaster of medical thrillers.--- Harriet Klausner

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Tom

Yes what would you like to do.?

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Very formulaic.. More of the same

I could barely get through it. Just a repeat of previous plots and characters.

Truly a superb medical thriller that keeps you engrossed in every chapter...

Through 'Marker' novel, Robin Cook has exceptionally well-conveyed his candid thoughts about healthcare reforms, genetic markers & their role in predicting the disease in advance, in addition to intelligent coding of the human genome and some of the effects that it holds good for future research. This novel keeps you engrossed till the end & can be responsible for scintillating thoughts after the second half chapters. Worth Reading story that captures the negative consequences that discovery of markers holds true for many of the healthcare organizations & patients.

What happened?

I was really disappointed with this book. Usually Robin Cook is really an interesting writer, and the books move along quickly. This one was a really slow mover...I didn't even finish the whole thing. It was apparent from the beginning what would happen and it was just too slow moving to make it worth the effort.

Excellent and page turning

I love most of Robin Cook's novels. This book in particular kept me very interested. Highly recommended!

Worth buying

I really enjoy his books, it keeps you going till the end. I like the medical issues since I am an RN and enjoy all his medical novels. MBrown

Some good aspects, but overall average

A serial killer is stalking patients in the hospital. Will Jack and Laurie get to them in time? As he has with prior novels, Cook weaves cutting edge medical discoveries (genetic markers) into his plot line. Despite doing so, I was disappointed in his use of the oldest trick in the book for bumping off the patients (potassium IV infusions). Anyone who knows anything about medicine would consider potassium first in a series of intentional sudden deaths in young people that have negative toxicology screens. So...rather than anticipating the next page, I felt more frustrated by how long it took Laurie and Jack to figure that out - it should've happened on page 50 rather than 400.

Has happened, but not for the same reasons

I'm a nurse and work in a intensive care unit, Dr. Cook was dead on in his authors note at the end of this novel. Nurses are greatly underappreciated and underpaid. As the baby boomers in this field retire or burn out, nursing schools can not keep up at a pace to replace them and to make things worse the nurses who do enter the field quickly realize that not only are they under an enormous amount of pressure, but when things go wrong they more than likely are going to be the scape goat. Nurses who work the main floors have at time the responsibility of 8 patients of complicated medical issues, this type of situation usually sets the most experienced nurse up for failure. This is how 'Jazz' a nurse who's depicted in this novel is able to get and keep a job, what has changed is the availability of toxic meds on the floors. I have heard stories of meds like potassium being given in large doses by mistake on floors and in other situations which had devastating results. All in all I really enjoyed Marker, Dr. Cook does a really good job of describing the hospital scenes. The next time you are admitted to the hospital instead if asking who will be seeing you, you should ask how many patients including yourself will your nurse have.

A Decent Book

This book was better than Robin Cook's last 2 books.Was happy Cook brought back Jack and Laura. I've enjoyed there past adventures. This one however was only decent to Cook's ealier works. Still a decent book to read. I would tell people to read it

Very enlightening medical thriller

Robin Cook is back in top form with this timely medical thriller. His eye opening data on genetic markers has really generated questions on who has this information and why its underwraps.

Robin Cook is a great writer!

I loved this book, as I do all his books. This book was probably 75 pages too long, but still a great read.

A-ONE VOICE PERFORMANCE OF THIS THRILLER

Those who favor thrillers served with a hefty dose of meds will find much to like in Robin Cook's 25th medical thriller. Broadway, film and television actor George Guidall performs this fascinating tale of unwarranted deaths in healing places with evident mastery of medical terms and subtle undertones at points where the narrative delves more deeply into affairs of the heart. When almost 30 year old Sean McGillin fractures his leg while skating, surgery promises to be an inconvenience. However, it proves to be a fatal one. There was no reason for him to die. Then a young mother dies - again, for no apparent reason following surgery. Listeners will be delighted to again meet Drs. Laurie Montgomery and Jack Stapleton. Their romance is on the rocks but their professional lives are still entwined through the chief medical examiner's office. Laurie is suspicious when she is charged with performing autopsies on the bodies of these two healthy young people who died at the same hospital. It takes Jack a bit longer to acknowledge that something may be terribly amiss. When it becomes obvious that the deaths were carefully planned there can be little doubt that a knowledgeable, clever serial killer stalks hospital corridors. Although she may be seen as indefatigable, the tide turns when Laurie realizes that she may be the next victim. Leave it to Robin Cook to weave an absorbing story carrying rapt listeners to a totally unexpected closer. - Gail Cooke

Best Cook novel I've read in a while

I'm a long time fan of Robin Cook and Marker is by far the best novel of his I've read in a while. The book brings back Laurie Montgomery and her lover, Jack Stapleton to investigate a series of mysterious deaths, all similar but at different hospitals. In the background, Jack and Laurie are trying to redefine their relationship. As always, Cook keeps the reader on the edge of one's seat from the first page to the last. Being a doctor himself, Cook sprinkles in a wide array of medical jargon and this only make the book more interesting. If you are a fan of the medical thriller and other authors such as Tess Gerritson and Michael Palmer, you will enjoy Marker.

good read, but long read

i enjoyed the book, but it could of been made alot shorter and gotten the point accross just fine. it was my first book by mr. cook, and didn't think that he always had to make reference to obese women. but all in all, it was enjoyable. thanks!

OUTSTANDING

A work of art. Marker is by far the best book that I have read in years. A real 'page- turner.' Very interesting, but not too 'scientific.'

Predictable.... and waaaaay too long

I've enjoyed quite a few of Cook's novels, but primarily his earlier works, which were tight, inventive, and original medical thrillers. None of those adjectives define this book. First of all, the mechanism which drives the final plot twists is so very easy to figure out very, very early in the book, with about thirty seconds of thought. So, there's no surprising denoument in the end. This story is 538 pages in the hardcover edition (not including his Afterword). Easily a hundred of these pages, and probably more, should have been edited out of this book. I found myself skimming pages at a time as I was looking for the story to pick back up again after wading through the interminable (and boring) angst of the two lead characters plumbing their relationship in excruciatingly mind-numbing and repetitive detail. And every plot twist is depicted repetitively as each of three or four characters try to deduce the nature of the goings-on at a hospital stalked by a serial killer. In all honesty, I was barely able to finish this book. It was more out of curiousity about whether I'd correctly predicted the ending - which I had. It's almost literally a no-brainer. I simply can't recommend this one.

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