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Fatal Cure

by Robin Cook

Let's be honest – Robin Cook tells a great story, but he's no writer. Fatal Cure was published back in 1994, but although Mr. Cook comes out with fantastic tales from a doctor's point of view, his written efforts show no improvement with age. Instead, as with so many novelists today, once you've become famous, once you're a big name, once you're books are guaranteed to bring in the bucks, your editors are more concerned with book jackets and marketing than they are with the actual prose.

The first half of Fatal Cure is more like a doctor's prescription than a novel – in that the writing is choppy with short sentences and paragraphs, surrounding important content. (Thank heaven we're at least not subjected to the good doctor's handwriting!). Mr. Cook's written words simply do not FLOW. Robin Cook's first book, Coma, was an instant success and made into a movie, as were several other of his books. Maybe Mr. Cook would have been even more of a success as a screen writer. At least that way no one could fault his inadequate writing style!

Fatal Cure starts off with doctors Angela and David Wilson being invited to Bartlet, Vermont, to join the Bartlet Community Hospital there. This would provide them both with a wonderful opportunity to move from Boston, which is becoming increasingly full of urban dysfunction, and give their eight-year-old daughter Nikki some fresh air to breathe. Nikki has cystic fibrosis. Naturally, Angela, a pathologist, and David, the internal medicine half of the marriage, take Nikki's needs into consideration first.

Both doctors are enthusiastically welcomed, and after a brief return to Boston and further assaults from city life and apartment living, Angela and David make the decision to move to the country. They buy their first house. It belonged to a former hospital administrator, Dennis Hodges, who had simply disappeared. Dr. Hodges was an enemy to many – even his wife was glad he was gone, and nobody tried very hard to find out what had happened to him. Meanwhile, purchase of the large home means Nikki can have the dog she's always wanted, and David starts slowly learning about home repair and restoration.

Then David begins to refer some of his cancer patients to hospital care – patients that are not held in the hospital for cancer, but for other physical malfunctions such as phlebitis or a broken hip. In every case after surgery is performed, the patients are recovering nicely. Then suddenly, for no apparent reason, they suddenly become sicker, disoriented, and die. The causes are baffling and undecipherable.

In addition, this was exactly what was occurring to other patients before David came on board. To make matters worse, David is given a reprimand by his employer, with the unmistakable intimation that he is considering the welfare of his patients more than cost to the hospital. Then Angela is sexually harassed by her own boss. When she complains to someone over his head, he becomes vicious, questioning every move she makes.

Another problem consists of a continuing rape. The nurses who enter the hospital parking lots after their tour of duty is over at night are at constant risk. Lights are installed, but Angela herself is attacked. However, this time her ski-masked attacker isn't out to rape her – he tries to kill her. When she reports this to the local police, they pass it off – even blaming her as the cause.

The corpse of Dr. Hodges is then discovered behind a cinder-block wall in the basement of the Wilson's house. Once again, the local police do nothing. Angela finally hires a private investigator to discover who murdered Hodges.

Everything points to hospital administration. Angela and David are both fired from their lucrative jobs and left heavily in debt. The private investigator is killed. And when the shocking truth is eventually revealed, it's not limited to one person, but several. The
actual murderer is a psychotic, knowingly employed by someone high up in the hospital hierarchy – but that psychotic's revenge is on the entire board of directors.

The Wilsons escape and leave Bartlet behind to settle back in New Jersey, after consenting to a TV interview. During the interview they admit they have no proof of their claims that the hospital administration was killing people primarily to save on costs, but simply want to get out the message.

Why anyone would want to leave Vermont – especially to live in New Jersey! – is something Robin Cook fails to explain. The Wilsons presumably could have located somewhere else in the state and still enjoyed lower costs and the benefits of clean air and country living for their daughter. However, Mr. Cook is apparently addicted to a more citified lifestyle. Now if only such urbanization could influence and improve his prose!

Alan Paul Curtis

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