I’ve never read Robin Cook before, and this is certainly not the season of my life where I need to be getting caught up on popular fiction to the detriment of my studies and other readings! Still, it’s COVID season(s). Everyone around me is catching the contagion, and I’ve presently got a chest cold myself. When I saw this novel in the Little Free Library this week, I just had to give it a try.
My only passing knowledge of Robin Cook is from the novel-made-blockbuster starring Dustin Hoffman, Outbreak. An exciting film about another like-pathogen, that movie that made me a little leary of monkeys even years later when I’d come upon a brood of wild macaques while hiking on The Island. “Brood” might not be the right word, but still: every time I heard their grunting in the bushes, I feared I might start bleeding from the eyes. That’s had been my only impression of Robin Cook up ’til now.
This book came off as far less intense than that movie, as one hospital in the city of New York starts finding random cases of serious diseases like plague and tularemia. These cases don’t turn into an epidemic but rather peter out after a few deaths, which is why the cases seem so strange. Dr. Jack Stapleton, a city coroner, begins noticing some strange goings on and investigates—a move that throws his whole into a tizzy.
As written in 1995, the book’s gang scenes felt a bit dated (like they were obviously written by a “cracker”), but the chase scenes were intense nonetheless. While I enjoyed the overall writing an plot (it kept me turning the pages, after all), I was not impressed with the ending (which of course I won’t spoil). It was ludicrous, and this fact alone makes me wonder if I’ll ever try reading another 500-page Robin Cook novel again [Editor’s Note: I did later try Genesis.]. It also makes me wonder if I’ve ever held Clive Cussler to the same standard.
Contagion was a nice weekend read for me, and it might make for good beach or airplane fare, but it’s just your average medical thriller. I’m sure there are better options out there.
©2021 E.T.