Vital Signs
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- CHF 4.00
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- CHF 4.00
Beschreibung des Verlags
Millions of readers met crusading epidemiologist Marissa Blumenthal in the pages of the bestselling Outbreak. Now Robin Cook brings back his feisty heroine in a gripping tale, Vital Signs – a roller-coaster ride into the unexpected and the utterly unconscionable.
In the eyes of her envious peers, Marissa has it all: a superb professional reputation, a flourishing pediatrics practice, even a fairy-tale marriage with the man of her dreams – Robert Buchanan, an entrepreneur involved in health-care administration and research.
But there is one thing Marissa does not have: the child she desperately desires. And when tests confirm that her sealed fallopian tubes have rendered her infertile, her perfect world begins to crumble. Obsessed with becoming pregnant, Marissa barely even notices the disastrous effect her idée fixe is having on her marriage and career.
When a little medical sleuthing points to suspicious origins of her infertility, Marissa boldly challenges the law. Along with Wendy, a new friend with a similar infertility problem, she breaks into a fertility clinic, travels to Australia, a center of in-vitro fertilization, then on to Hong Kong.
The two women's exploration of the brave new world of reproductive technologies takes a shocking turn when Wendy is violently killed – and Marissa's own life is mysteriously threatened. But personal danger does not deter her, and she allows herself to be drawn into the dark vortex of the baby-making business, where a woman's dearest dream turns slowly, agonizingly to dread . . .
Timely, top-notch suspense that will grip the reader from the very first page, Vital Signs proves once again the unique and compelling genius of Robin Cook.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Cook's popular medical thrillers are designed, in part, to keep the public aware of both the technological possibilities of modern medicine and the ensuing ethical problems. His topic this time is reproductive science and the often murky baby-making business. Epidemiologist Marissa Blumenthal, seen before in Outbreak , now has a successful pediatrics practice near Boston and an affluent health-care-entrepreneur husband. But her inability to become pregnant threatens both her marriage and her career. After unsuccessful visits to a local fertility clinic, she discovers a suprising and suspicious link between her medical records and those of an inordinate number of the clinic's clients. Traveling to Australia to learn more about a worldwide in vitro fertilization organization, Marissa and her friend Wendy are trailed, and a tragedy occurs. Marissa, now accompanied by the physician whose work she had come to Australia to investigate, goes to Hong Kong and eventually China--fleeing murderous assailants every step of the way--before a billion-dollar international scam is revealed. As always, Cook enlivens predictable action and shallow characterization with medical expertise and timely subject matter.
