Jack Stapleton and Laurie Montgomery
12 total works
Jennifer Hernandez is a fourth-year medical student at UCLA whose world is shattered during an otherwise ordinary day. While half-listening to a news report on medical tourism, where first-world citizens travel to third-world countries for surgery, she hears her beloved grandmother's name mentioned, and her own heart nearly stops: the reporter says Maria Suarez-Hernandez had died, a day after undergoing a hip replacement in New Delhi's Queen Victoria Hospital.
Maria raised Jennifer and her brothers from infancy, and their bond was unshakable. Still, the news that Maria had travelled to India is a shock to Jennifer, until she realizes it was the only viable option for the hardworking yet uninsured woman. Devastated, Jennifer takes emergency leave from school and heads to India, where relations with local officials go from sympathetic to sour as she presses for information. With the discovery of other unexplained deaths followed by hasty cremations, Jennifer reaches out to her mentor, New York City medical examiner Dr Laurie Montgomery.
Laurie, along with her husband, Dr Jack Stapleton, rushes to the younger woman's side. And as the death count grows, so do the questions, leading Laurie and Jennifer to unveil a sinister, multilayered conspiracy of global proportions.
Stapleton thinks he is past pain and past caring, but as a series of lethal illneses -- capped by a particularly deadly outbreak of a rare strain of influenza -- strikes the young, the old and the innocent, his suspicions are aroused. And when the apparent epicenter of these outbreaks is revealed to be a hospital controlled by the same for-profit giant that cannibalized his old ophthalmology practice, Stapleton fears he has stumbled upon a conspiracy of catastrophic proportions.
Solving the mystery leads to his unlikely pairing, both professionally and personally, with Terese Hagen, an art director at a hot Madison Avenue advertising firm. And as he gets closer to discovering the real explanation behind the killer contagions, he finds his life is on the line -- for there are those who will pay any price to keep the diabolical truth from being revealed.
"Contagion" anticipates some of the uncharted consequences of managed health care, in an age when even the wariest consumer may be at risk. It is a terrifying cautionary tale for the millennium, as health-care giants collide. It is Robin Cook at his unerring best.
With a theme reminiscent of Coma, here is Robin Cook at his disturbing, electrifying best. Set in Manhattan, Blindsight tells of city forensic pathologist Dr. Laurie Montgomery's battle to foil a plot of unimaginable evil.
When a series of unrelated yuppie deaths by cocaine overdose are reported to the medical examiner's office, Dr. Montgomery's curiosity is piqued. As the friends and families of the deceased uniformly swear that their loved ones weren't involved with drugs, that curiosity intensifies. But her feelings turn to anger and frustration when she attempts to autopsy the bodies and investigate the deaths, only to find herself at odds with her superiors, the police department, and the relatives themselves. The reason for the opposition range from political expediency to religious belief, but Laurie senses that something far more menacing links the so-called random deaths. Jeopardizing her professional future, Laurie Montgomery sets out to uncover the truth-which leads her to a distinguished New York hospital and, beyond that, to nightmare.
Robin Cook's Blindsight creates a chilling, haunting aura of terror and suspense, where fact and fiction imperceptibly merge.
New York Times bestselling author Robin Cook takes on the ripped-from-the-headlines topic of using DNA tracking to catch a killer in Genesis, an unforgettable medical thriller.
When the body of social worker Kera Jacobsen shows up on Chief Medical Examiner Laurie Montgomery’s autopsy table, it appears at first that she was the victim of a tragic drug overdose. But for Laurie and her new pathology resident, the brilliant but outspoken Dr. Aria Nichols, further investigation reveals an alarming discovery. The young woman was ten weeks pregnant when she died, but nobody seems to know who the father was – or whether he holds the key to Kera’s final moments alive.
While Laurie faces a personal crisis with the support of her husband, forensic pathologist Jack Stapleton, the impulsive Aria investigates a controversial new technique to progress the case: using DNA databases to track down those who don’t want to be found. Working with experts at a genealogy website based in New York, she plans to trace the foetus’s DNA in the hopes of identifying the mystery father.
After Kera’s closest friend is found murdered days later, the need for answers becomes critical. Because someone out there clearly doesn’t want Kera’s secrets to come to light and if Aria gets any closer to the truth, she and Laurie face becoming targets for a ruthless killer.
Enjoy more medical mystery thrillers with Contagion, Vector, and Pandemic.
Through a crisis of medical malpractice emerges evidence of how the medical profession itself is being harmfully transformed by the intrusion of powerful business interests. Not least is the growing prevalence of `Concierge Medicine' where public-service doctors will take on private patients for a fee.
In this enthralling story, which again features Dr Laurie Montgomery and Dr Jack Stapleton (whose long-term professional relationship here takes on a new twist), Robin Cook continues to enthral us with his deep personal insight into contemporary medicine but also provides readers with the biggest surprise ending found in any of his many bestselling novels.
The investigation into the shocking death of CIA agent Kevin Markham is a professional challenge for Dr. Laurie Montgomery, and it has her colleagues wondering if she still has what it takes after so much time away.
Markham’s autopsy results are inconclusive, and though it appears he’s been poisoned, toxiccology fails to corroborate Laurie’s suspicions. While her coworkers doubt her assassination theory, her determination wins over her husband, fellow medical examiner Jack Stapleton, and together they discover associations to a large pharmaceutical company and several biomedical start-ups dealing with stem-cell research.
Laurie and Jack must race to connect the dots before they are consumed in a dangerous game of biotech espionage.
Pandemic is an explosive medical thriller about a deadly virus, from New York Times-bestselling author Robin Cook.
In New York City, a young, seemingly healthy woman is struck down by a respiratory attack as she heads home on the subway. By the time she arrives in Manhattan, she’s dead. She ends up on forensic pathologist Jack Stapleton’s autopsy table, which reveals surprising findings about the cause of death.
Fearing the woman’s case could be the first in a severe outbreak of a deadly airborne virus, Jack works in overdrive for a diagnosis. As the inconclusive tests come back, Jack urges his wife, and chief medical examiner, Dr. Laurie Montgomery, to sound the alarm at the mayor’s office, concerned that more cases may follow.
When further cases do occur around the city, and then in Los Angeles, London and Rome, Jack enters a race against time to discover the link that connects all the victims before it’s too late . . .
Enjoy more medical mystery thrillers with Contagion, Vector, and Genesis.
Angela Dawson, M.D., appears to have it all: at thirty-seven, she owns a fabulous New York City apartment, a stunning seaside house on Nantucket, and enjoys the perks of her prosperous lifestyle. With her controlling interest in three busy specialty hospitals in NYC and plans for others in Miami and Los Angeles, Angela's future looks very bright. But her climb to the top was rough, marked by a troubled childhood, a failed marriage, and the devastating blow of bankruptcy.
Then a surge of drug-resistant staph infections in all three hospitals devastates Angela's carefully constructed world. Not only do the infections result in patient deaths, but the fatalities cause stock prices to tumble. Will Angela be able to hold her empire together?
Newly married Medical examiners Laurie Montgomery and Jack Stapleton are professionally and personally intrigued by these deaths. With Jack facing surgery in one of the hospitals to repair a torn ligament, Laurie can't help investigating, opening a Pandora's box of corporate intrigue that threatens not just her livelihood, but her life with Jack as well.
After performing a post-mortem on a young college student who'd been recently treated by a chiropractor, Jack Stapleton, a New York City medical examiner, decides to explore alternative medicine. What makes people seek help from Eastern philosophies or even faith healers to cure their illnesses?
Meanwhile his old college friend, Shawn Doherty, a renowned archaeologist involved in a dig at St Peter's in Rome has made a startling discovery with huge ecclesiastical and medical implications.
When Kevin Murray, another old college, and now Roman Catholic Bishop of New York, gets wind of Shawn's findings he's desperate to keep them from the public and to disassociate himself from Shawn. Kevin turns to his old friend Jack to help protect this explosive secret - one with the power to change lives forever
When notorious underworld leader Carlo Franconi is gunned down, his Mafioso competitors become prime suspects. Suspicions are fuelled when Franconi's body disappears from the city morgue before it can be autopsied - much to the embarrassment of the authorities, but to the amusement of forensic pathologist Dr Jack Stapleton.
A few days later, the mutilated, unidentifiable body of a `floater' arrives on the autopsy table and Jack himself becomes disturbed by the case. While unidentified bodies routinely make their way to the medical examiner's office, what rouses Jack's curiosity is not so much that the body is missing it head, hands and feet - but also its liver.
Aided by his colleague Dr Laurie Montgomery, he identifies the corpse as the missing mobster. But who actually killed Carlo Franconi? And was the killer also responsible for the theft of the corpse and its grisly disfigurement?
Their search for the truth leads them to the steamy jungles of equatorial Africa, where they discover a sinister cabal whose activities include surgical procedures a step beyond the latest in current technology - and a leap beyond accepted medical ethic.
`Leave it to doctor-turned-novelist Robin Cook to scare us all to death' Los Angeles Times
The harrowing bestseller form the master of medical thrillers, written with the bold strokes of reality that are Robin Cook's trademarks.
When notorious underworld figure Carlo Franconi is gunned down, his Mafioso competitors become prime suspects. Suspicions are fueled when Franconi's body disappears from the city morgue before it can be autopsied-much to the embarrassment of the chief medical examiner and the mayor, but to the amusement of the morgue's resident cynic, forensic pathologist Dr. Jack Stapleton.
A few days later, when the mutilated, unidentifiable body of a "floater" arrives on the autopsy table, Jack is troubled by the case. While unidentified bodies routinely make their way to the medical examiner's office, what piques Jack's curiosity is not so much this body's missing head, hands, and feet, but its missing liver.
Aided by his colleague Dr. Laurie Montgomery, Jack identifies the corpse as the missing Franconi, but this positive identification in no way solves the mystery. Who killed Carlo Franconi? And was the triggerman responsible for the theft of Franconi's body and its eventual mutilation? Jack and Laurie's search for the truth leads them to the steamy jungles of equatorial Africa, where they discover a sinister cabal whose stock-in-trade involves surgical procedures a step beyond the latest in current technology and a Promethean leap beyond accepted medical ethics.
With Robin Cook's signature cutting-edge suspense, Chromosome 6 combines the fast action of a nerve-jangling thriller with the medical possibilities of the all-too-near future.