Robin Cook: Mortal Fear (UK 1989)

From the Publisher:
ROBIN COOK
'Master of the medical thriller' -- NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
Jason Howard had used his career as a doctor to help him escape a private tragedy. But now his patients are dying from massive heart attacks, patients previously declared healthy by Jason's own examinations.

When his colleague Doctor Alvin Hayes becomes the next victim, taking his secret medical breakthrough to the grave, Jason begins to investigate, his search taking him from high-tech laboratories, through the steamy underworld of Boston's sex clubs to Carol Donner, the beautiful topless dancer who was the mistress of Dr Hayes.

As the truth begins to emerge, Jason realises there is a connection between Hayes' research and the deaths themselves, a connection that points towards a conspiracy so diabolical it threatens to undermine the ethics at the centre of the medical profession, and endanger Jason's very life...

'This book will give you nightmares about private medicine' -- TODAY

Robin Cook: Mortal Fear. Pan Books, ISBN: 0330307606 (March, 1989), 368 p., £3.99.

Robin Cook: Mortal Fear (USA 1989)

From the Publisher:
"THE MAN WHO INVENTED HIGH-TECH HORROR TAKES YOU ON A CHILLING ODYSSEY INTO THE ORIGINS OF LIFE -- AND DEATH." -- USA WEEKEND
Robin Cook is back -- with his newest, most provocative bestseller. A harrowing medical nightmare on the cutting edge of genetic research, Mortal Fear goes beyond the shocking chills of Coma and the sweeping panic of Outbreak... into the controversial future of modern medicine. At a large Boston clinic, a world-class biologist stumbles upon a miraculous discovery, a major scientific breakthrough. Soon, healthy, middle-aged patients are dying of old age. And the ultimate experiment in terror begins...

MORTAL FEAR

"PAGE-TURNING ACTION... REACHES OUT AND GRABS YOU!" -- RICHMOND TIMES-DISPATCH
"SWIFT AND ENTERTAINING... A SLAM-BANG FINISH!" -- KIRKUS
"A FRIGHTENING LOOK AT GENETIC ENGINEERING... A HARD BOOK TO PUT DOWN!" -- INDIANAPOLIS NEWS
"SHOCKING!" -- BOSTON GLOBE

A Choice of The Literary Guild

Robin Cook: Mortal Fear. Berkley Books, ISBN: 0425113884 (February, 1989), 366 p., $4.95.

Robin Cook: Mortal Fear (USA 1988)

From the Publisher:
MORTAL FEAR
ROBIN COOK
The man who invented medical techno-horror takes you on a startling and chilling odyssey into the origins of life -- and death.
When an eminent biomolecular geneticist dies violently before his eyes, a doctor must use more than his medical knowledge to explain what he comes to believe is murder, and to stop a scientific breakthrough from becoming a curse instead of a miracle.

There was a lot that internist Jason Howard didn't know about Dr. Alvin Hayes. But when the scientist met his sudden end, it all came out with a vengeance -- for the academically respected geneticist had led a double life, and the private side was damning.

Dismissing official police reports linking Hayes's death to his associations with the sordid side of society, Jason believes Hayes was silenced to keep him from revealing the results of his research, and the secret lies not in the back streets of Boston's erotic underworld, the Combat Zone, but in the high-tech genetics laboratories of the Good Health Plan clinic.

Overcoming his own personal emotional problems, Jason turns his powers of diagnosis to deduction, vowing to solve the mystery no matter who tries to stop him. His search will take him from gleaming modern labs to seamy sex clubs, from Beacon Hill drawing rooms to the wilds of the Pacific Northwest and back, before the pieces of the deadly puzzle fall into place.

By then, Jason has unearthed the scientific breakthrough Hayes was killed to hide -- and has himself become the target of a malevolent cabal, bent on using the origins of life to create a hell on earth.

With this disturbing story, DNA research is shown to have a fearful potential, not only through possible mistakes and accidents, but ironically even through success. Splendidly researched and intricately plotted, Mortal Fear is Robin Cook at his prophetic and galvanizing best.

Dr. Robin Cook, a graduate of the Columbia University Medical School, finished his postgraduate medical training at Harvard. He is currently on leave from the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary and divides his time between Boston and Florida.

Robin Cook: Mortal Fear. Putnam's, ISBN: 0399133186 (January, 1988), 364 p., $17.95.