Manner of Death
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4.1 • 127 Ratings
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
In the new fast-paced medical thriller from bestselling author Robin Cook, fan favorites Jack and Laurie are inadvertently drawn into a dangerous vortex of a series of homicides that have been cleverly staged as suicides.
After Dr. Jack Stapleton’s near-death confrontation with a medical serial killer, his wife, NYC Chief Medical Examiner Laurie Montgomery, is carrying the load both at work and at home. When Laurie insists that Dr. Ryan Sullivan—an underperforming senior pathology resident who is spending his required month at the medical examiner's office but who truly detests doing forensic autopsies—assist her on a suicide autopsy in hopes of stimulating his interest in the field, the last thing she expects is to be unwittingly drawn into a major conspiracy that puts her own life in jeopardy.
Desperate to avoid performing as many forensic autopsies as possible, Dr. Ryan Sullivan offers to participate in a research project on a series of suicides put together by one of the medical legal investigators. These suicides, like the case Ryan analyzes with Laurie, hint at some bothersome questions about their "manner of death." Although the project was more of a ruse than a serious study, Ryan surprises himself by immediately uncovering unexpected shared commonalities. Most astonishing of all, Ryan's inquiries eventually put him and Laurie at risk by leading to a nefarious cancer diagnostics company that promotes the very latest, groundbreaking cancer screening technology in a shockingly self-serving and fraudulent fashion.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Cook's subpar 14th outing for married medical examiners Jack Stapleton and Laurie Montgomery (after 2022's Night Shift) makes the baffling choice to reveal that former Navy SEAL Hank Roberts has killed financial adviser Sean O'Brien on behalf of a company called Oncology Diagnostics in its opening pages, effectively draining the ensuing plot of suspense. From there, O'Brien's body makes its way to the autopsy table of Montgomery, New York City's chief medical examiner, with law enforcement suggesting his death was a suicide. With the help of pathology resident Ryan Sullivan, however, Montgomery realizes that O'Brien has, in fact, been murdered. Sullivan soon learns of six other recent cases in Montgomery's office in which a presumed suicide showed signs of foul play and begins to investigate the links between them before turning up dead of an apparent suicide himself. Montgomery is sure that Sullivan, too, has been killed, and she launches her own probe; Stapleton gets involved after a high-profile news reporter and her husband turn up dead in an apparent murder-suicide and links start to appear between that case and his wife's. Cook alternates the investigations with scenes that shine a light on the crooked inner workings of Oncology Diagnostics, which pays Roberts and other ex-military killers to eliminate people who threaten its profits. Cook's characters are paper-thin, and much of the plotting is predictable. Only the author's most devoted fans will find this worth their time.
