Book Review: Coma by Robin Cook

I found Robin Cook in the late 1980s, so I was not reading his books when he began writing. I enjoyed his books so much, I began reading as many of his books as I could find. I did not realize it but when Cook wrote coma in 1977, but with this book, Coma, he began the genre of the medical thriller.

To be honest, as I read more of Robin Cooks novels, I began to see a pattern to the plotting in his books. He tended to become predictable with his plot segments. So, I stopped reading him.

But, I loved Coma.

Coma began when several patients were admitted to Boston Memorial Hospital for routine procedures, all considered to be minor surgeries. All of the routine procedures had the same result, all of the patients died on the operating table. Spread out over a long enough time, the deaths were written off as tragic, but within acceptable limits. A third-year medical student, Susan Wheeler, working as a resident at the hospital noticed a pattern and investigated the deaths. Two patients during her residency mysteriously go into comas immediately after their operations due to complications from anesthesia. She discovered the oxygen line in a particular Operating Room had been rigged to feed carbon monoxide to the patients undergoing surgery, instead of what the doctors thought was being given,

Looking deeper, she uncovered the Jefferson Institute, an intensive care facility where patients were kept alive until they could be used for harvesting for healthy organs.

That is the story and the conflict involved in the book, Coma. I won’t go into it any deeper for fear of spoiling the joy of reading and sharing the excitement, that Cook put into the book. And, it is exciting.

I recommend the novel, Coma.