I've always enjoyed medical thrillers, and have read several of Robin Cooks books. Coma, some 30 years ago, being my absolute favorite. In Cooks latest medical thriller: Foreign Body, Cook's subject is medical tourism, the trend in which U.S. citizens seek to save costs on expensive surgery through treatment overseas. At the center of the drama is Jennifer Hernandez, a fourth-year medical student at UCLA, whose grandmother has died in a New Delhi hospital following hip replacement surgery. Suspicious about the circumstances, Hernandez immediately flies to India to investigate. There she not only discovers a number of similar deaths of U.S. citizens but also runs into a desperate Indian medical industry struggling to block all publicity about the deaths and a huge American HMO that wants nothing more than the widest exposure of the apparent medical missteps in the Third World.
Implausible plot twists, (CNN learns of the patients deaths before the family does) unconvincing villains, silly dialogue and a convenient,quickly wrapped up ending make this book a less than perfect read. I still enjoyed the book , but it was just average in my opinion.
Rating - 3/5 - Completed - 8/21/08
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