Nano

October 29, 2012
This accomplished if familiar medical thriller from bestseller Cook picks up the story of doctor-to-be Pia Grazdani after her horrific experiences in 2011’s Death Benefit, which included being abducted and witnessing a colleague, Will McKinley, being shot in the head. Pia decides to defer her New York City residency in favor of taking a position with Nano, a Boulder, Colo., company on the cutting edge of nanotechnology research. Nano’s development of “a microbivore-based antibacterial treatment” may help Will recover. To no reader’s surprise, Nano’s stereotypical evil businessman/scientist head, Zachary Berman, is prepared to jump across experimental ethics lines in pursuit of his own ends. Though Berman’s company finds a way to enable “a man to survive a massive, normally lethal medical crisis apparently unharmed,” Pia suspects that something more sinister is in the works. The concept of a young medico stumbling on a deadly conspiracy may have been fresh in 1977’s Coma, but more than three decades later, there isn’t much novelty left.

In Robin Cook's new medical thriller, an emotionally drained medical student takes a year off to work as a researcher for Nano LLC, a Colorado research facility. On Pia's arrival, she's warned not to ask questions about the company's campus, lavish funding, or state-of-the-art security. However, the company founder expects her to accept his unwanted advances. George Guidall's versatile range and skill perfectly render the descriptions of cutting-edge nanotechnology, nanorobots, and their potential abuse. He believably portrays a diverse cast of characters, excelling with Pia, a gutsy and tenacious young woman who is determined to discover why fellow employees are suffering seizures. The possibility that the company is using its own employees as guinea pigs will keep listeners tuned in long after the ride home ends. G.D.W. (c) AudioFile 2013, Portland, Maine