Contagion

By Robin Cook

After a lapse in reading any Robin Cook, I've finally circled back. This time, I read Contagion, which (for those unfamiliar with Cook's novels) is the sequel to Blindsight. This time in Contagion, Cook, a master of crafting unique medical thrillers, takes his readers out of the hospital and back into the autopsy room at the New York City Medical Examiner's Office from Blindsight. This time, it follows a new medical examiner, Dr. Jack Stapleton, investigating a string of bizarre, rare infectious diseases killing otherwise healthy people.

Now, I'm typically not into sequels unless they're done particularly well, but Contagion favored better than I hoped it would. Cook executes his mystery with the kind of attention to medical detail that has repeatedly made him a success at what he does. But while he adds more than enough twists and turns to keep things interesting for the reader, he stumbles with motivation.

His protagonist's trauma is explained right in the opening chapter, but in the opening setup while he establishes the conflict, he makes him come off a little more like an asshole than someone in legitimate emotional pain. It's my guess that he did this because he didn't want to create an exact mirror of his female heroine from the first novel, but such setup could have used a little more attention to detail to fully justify his outlook towards the world. Jack's initial characterization detracted from the mystery because the reader couldn't feel as closely connected. I was halfway through the novel before I actually liked Jack.

That being said, on the same line as motivation and characterization, I found the antagonists' motivation for their masterful plan poorly tied together. Rather than taking the time to fully develop their wants with some intriguing behind-the-scenes chapters that could have added more clues, Cook chooses to misdirect and reveal a shocking twist that, I felt, wasn't as well connected. The last 100 pages, I couldn't help but wonder if Contagion wouldn't have been just a bit better if it had followed where I thought the story was going to go (bio-terrorism mixed with a unique love triangle).

Nonetheless, Cook brings it full circle to discuss the dangers of big hospital networks being run like fortune-500 companies and gets an A for creative deaths with his ending. He dares to ask us why we need to choose advertising over patient care. And he shows us what happens to quality when a bottom line is introduced. That alone makes Contagion a must-recommend for anyone looking for a great beach read, an honest look at Healthcare networks, or a book with clear-cut plot structure.