Book Review: Shock

Reviewed By: Harriet Klausner

Shock     Amazon US PB Amazon US HC Amazon UK PB Amazon Canada PB Amazon Canada HC
Robin Cook
Class/Genre:   Mystery   Medical   Thriller   High-Tech
Putnam, Sept 2001, $24.95, 384 pp.

The only thing keeping roommates Deborah Cochrane and Joanna Meissner from getting their doctorates from Harvard is writing up and turning in their thesis. They learn that the Wingate Fertility Clinic is willing to pay them forty five thousand dollars each for donating eggs so a couple can have a child. They agree to do so partly for humanitarian reasons and partly so they can buy a house and then rent it out while they live in Venice for the next year, completing their thesis and having fun.

Upon their return to the United States both women want to know if their eggs were used in vitro fertilization to produce children. When the clinic claims confidentiality, the two women assume new identities, change their looks and accept jobs working at the clinic. The plan is to hack into the computer records before disappearing into the night. It doesn’t take the bright inquisitive pair long to realize there are some strange things going on at the clinic and not all of them related to the standard fertility techniques. They decide to find out just what exactly is going on, an action that could kill them if they are not careful.

SHOCK is an exciting medical thriller centering on cutting edge technology experiments conducted by people who want to milk a cash cow (no offense to the cow). Robin Cook’s work is so frightening because the technology exists today for these experiments to be carried out by unscrupulous, unethical people. Mr. Cook’s complex characterizations are brilliant, as all the people populating the novel seem real. It’s easy to say SHOCK is going to be on every bestseller list.

Harriet Klausner

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Harriet Klausner