Terminal
Robin Cook

Despite a blue collar background and Irish roots mistrustful of fancy degrees, highly motivated, enormously intelligent Sean Murphy has made it as far as his third year in Harvard's combined Ph.D./M.D. program when he makes a fateful decision to take a two month research elective at the renowned Forbes Cancer Center in Miami. Sean is eager to study firsthand the Forbes Center's remarkable results treating medulloblastoma, a rare form of brain cancer. But his decision is also due, in no small part, to a budding romance with Janet Reardon, a nurse from a privileged and prominent Boston family. Unnerved by Janet's disturbing allure - and even more, bu thoughts of commitment - Sean opts for the safety and distance of the prestigious clinic.
But his plans at Forbes go awry from day one. First he is denied the opportunity to work on the medulloblastoma protocol. Then, to his surprise, Janet shows up at the medical center, having accepted a job - ostensibly to further her career but actually to pursue Sean.
When a disgruntled Sean appears on the verge of heading home, Janet persuades him to stay by coming up with a plan. The two of them will investigate the medulloblastoma cases surreptitiously, she taking the clinical and he the research. By the time they uncover the truth about the clinic's seemingly ground breaking cures, the pair run afoul of the law, their medical colleagues, and - perhaps worst of all - the powerful, enigmatic director of the Forbes Center, Dr. Randolph Mason.
Drawing closer together at every hazardous turn, Sean and Janet discover a horror beyond their worst suspicions, one that makes a mockery of the Hippocratic oath. It is a truth so nefarious it could very well wind them up dead.

Like the vast majority of Robin Cook's novels, some nefarious medical scene is going on and "they would have gotten away with it if it weren't for those meddling kids". That seems to be the thread that ties all of his books together. The nefarious scheme, hospital or research center, and characters are all that seems to be changed.

Still, it is an interesting read, though the same plot over and over gets a bit old after awhile.

In this novel, the Forbes Center is having a near one hundred percent success rate at curing a rare form of brain cancer. Oddly enough, all their patients seem to come from well to do families that are willing to make very large donations to the center once they or their family member has been cured. In reality, the doctors at the center are traveling around the United States looking for people that they can infect with a certain disease that will lead to this brain cancer. So, they are the root cause of the cancers that they are treating.

Sean and Janet go through a series of mishaps and illegal behavior that ends up with them finding out about this and being able to expose the Forbes Center. Of course, in the end of the book the Center closes down and yet all court cases against Sean and Janet for their many felonies are thrown out. As someone with a law degree and as a non-practicing attorney licensed in two states, it's things like this that pull me out of the novel and annoy me. It doesn't matter why they committed their felonies. It doesn't matter that they exposed an evil plan. Their cases would not have been dropped.

While an interesting book, I'd only recommend it if it sounds interesting to you or if you're a Robin Cook fan who likes his formulaic plots.

My rating: Three out of five snails.