Robin Cook

Robin Cook (born May 4, 1940, in New York City) is an American physician and novelist credited with establishing the modern medical thriller as a distinct commercial-fiction category. After earning his medical degree from Columbia University in 1966 and completing a residency in ophthalmology at the Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, Cook served as a submarine medical officer in the United States Navy before entering private practice in Boston. He began writing fiction during long stretches of submarine duty and at sea, and his first widely successful novel, "Coma" (1977), introduced the formula that would define his career: an ordinary medical professional uncovers an institutional conspiracy that the medical establishment has every financial incentive to bury. "Coma" was adapted by Michael Crichton in 1978, bringing Cook a mass audience, and over the following four decades he published more than thirty novels, most of them set inside hospitals, biotech firms, organ-transplant networks, or the regulatory agencies that oversee them. Recurring concerns include medical ethics, the commercialization of healthcare, organ trafficking, infectious disease, and the social cost of cutting-edge biotechnology — themes Cook has stated he chose deliberately to use commercial fiction as a vehicle for raising public awareness of issues he encountered as a practicing physician. His Boston-set "Godplayer" (1983) examines the doctor-as-god complex within cardiac surgery, while "Fever" (1982) tackles industrial chemical exposure and childhood leukemia. Later novels including "Shock" (2001), "Marker" (2005), "Terminal" (1993), and "Mortal Fear" (1988) extend the franchise into reproductive medicine, hospital-economics fraud, and managed care. His medical-examiner protagonists Jack Stapleton and Laurie Montgomery anchor a continuing series of New York City forensic-pathology thrillers begun with "Blindsight" (1992). Cook's books have sold in excess of 100 million copies worldwide and have been translated into more than forty languages. He continues to write from homes in Naples, Florida, and Boston, and remains a licensed physician.