Foreign Body

June 30, 2008
Bestseller Cook (Critical
) stumbles in this formulaic thriller about the timely subject of medical tourism, the trend in which U.S. citizens seek to save costs on expensive surgery through treatment overseas. At the center of the drama is Jennifer Hernandez, a fourth-year medical student at UCLA, whose grandmother has died in a New Delhi hospital following hip replacement surgery. Suspicious about the circumstances, Hernandez immediately flies to India to investigate. There she not only discovers a number of similar deaths of U.S. citizens but also runs into the one-two punch of a desperate Indian medical industry struggling to block all publicity about the deaths and a huge American HMO that wants nothing more than the widest exposure of the apparent medical missteps in the Third World. Implausible plot twists, unconvincing villains, silly dialogue and a convenient, all-too-happy ending make this one of Cook's rare weak efforts.

UCLA medical student Jennifer Hernandez is in over her head in this thriller by bestselling medical writer Dr. Robin Cook. When Hernandez learns that her grandmother has died in India after traveling there for a cheap hip replacement, she's crushed. She decides to investigate to learn exactly what happened, but when she unearths a massive conspiracy, she finds she may have dug too deep. Narrator George Guidall is a truly gifted performer with a knack for delivering complex prose, such as medical language, with ease. Guidall's commanding voice generates a strong sense of urgency and intrigue. Despite his strong performance, though, one wonders if a female narrator might have been better to portray a story with a female protagonist. L.B. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine