Description de l’éditeur
From the "master of the medical thriller" (The New York Times), Robin Cook, fan favorites Jack and Laurie return in another fast-paced spine chiller about a deadly bioweapon that could disrupt the world order as we know it.
“Masterful . . . Robin Cook is at the top of his game.” –#1 NYT bestselling author FREIDA MCFADDEN
When Laurie Montgomery temporarily steps down from her position as Chief Medical Examiner, she and Jack find themselves uncharacteristically free for a couple of weeks. And the timing couldn't be better when they receive a call from Jack's former medical school classmate, Robert Neilson, who is the sole family practitioner in Essex Falls, an idyllic town tucked away in New York State's Adirondack Mountains. Serving also as the Hamilton County coroner, Dr. Neilson is in over his head trying to explain the sudden death of a young, healthy pest control worker on top of an outbreak of rapidly progressive Alzheimer's-like cases, and he pleads with Jack and Laurie to come lend a professional hand. Unable to resist a good mystery and a vacation in one, Laurie and Jack agree to help and head upstate.
Essex Falls is beautiful enough and their accommodations are even better than they imagined. But they soon learn the town has suffered a major economic and social setback, which has shaken its residents to their cores. When the body of the pest control worker disappears without a trace just prior to an autopsy, Jack's penchant for solving forensic conundrums launches him into a full-scale investigation that uncovers the most frightening modus operandi of his career so far.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The limp latest installment of Cook's long-running Jack Stapleton and Laurie Montgomery series (after Manner of Death) is more of the same. The action kicks off with married medical examiners Jack and Laurie receiving a call from Bob Nielson, their former med school colleague, who works as the coroner for the small town of Essex Falls in Upstate New York. He needs help with a bizarre case: Essex Falls exterminator Ethan Jameson, founder of a right-wing militia called the Diehard Patriots, died by poisoning while preparing to welcome four Russian recruits to his cause. Though Nielson first chalks up Jameson's death to toxins he encountered on the job, an autopsy reveals a baffling chemical profile that he's never seen before. Jack and Laurie arrive to help Nielson investigate, and soon unravel a conspiracy involving a bioweapon that appears to induce dementia. While Cook holds back a handful of reveals for the climax, he gives up the bulk of the mystery too early, draining tension from the proceedings. Muddy prose (Jack sits on a staircase with "a moderate sense of acceptance and resolve tinged with appropriate fear") doesn't help. Even the author's fans might want to skip this one.
