Critical

Robin Cook's 2007 entry in his long-running Jack Stapleton and Laurie Montgomery series builds its thriller around a genuinely timely fear: drug-resistant staph infections spreading through specialty hospitals on the verge of an IPO. The medical premise is grounded in real MRSA concerns, and Cook keeps the pacing tight enough that Kirkus called it 'a genuinely titillating epidemiological puzzle.' The supporting cast — particularly healthcare entrepreneur Angela Dawson — earns praise for being vivid and memorable. The caveat for longtime Cook readers is that the formula is familiar, and the Dawson subplot occasionally crowds out the two protagonists. Still, for medical thriller fans it delivers exactly what the genre promises: credible science, hospital politics, and a race against a deadly clock.