Robin Cook

This author is known best for medical thrillers. He served in the Navy and also, went to medical school at Harvard and Columbia University. Someone flippantly handed me one of his books, Mutation, when I was in high school and it was a good book. Kind of scary, actually. There are critics of the book that say the story is basic, but I was way into it and found it suspenseful. The book itself is written like a movie script. I might just go over 2 or 3 of his books that I managed to get into.

 

In Mutation, Robin Cook’s masterpiece of techno-medical suspense, Dr. Cook tells a story as chilling and real as today’s headlines. On the forefront of surrogate parenting and genetic research, it is the explosive tale of a brilliant doctor who sought to create the son of his dreams–and invented a living nightmare…

He sought to create the son of his dreams—and invented a nightmare. Robin Cook’s new techno-medical thriller probes every father’s greatest fear.

Drawing on a horror theme as old as Frankenstein, as fresh as tomorrow’s headlines, Mutation is a chilling cautionary tale of the perils of genetic engineering.

When ob/gyn and biomolecular researcher Dr. Victor Frank learns of his wife’s infertility, he initiates a bold—and dangerous—experiment. Unbeknownst to everyone, including her, Dr. Frank has adapted the methods of animal husbandry and molecular genetics to human reproduction. Fusing his wife’s egg and his own sperm, he sets in motion the production of a superior being, his child.

The result of this experiment, a son, VJ, is born to a surrogate mother and legally adopted by the Franks. To their delight, their son is physically perfect, and by the age of three, displays the complex problem-solving abilities of a prodigy. Victor Frank is a happy man. He has produced a flawless human being, and that success—plus the subsequently healthy births he has covertly engineered through his obstetrics practice—bodes well for a dazzling professional future.

Then, without warning, VJ’s intelligence level plunges to a point appropriate to his age, but stabilizes. For the moment, Frank can breathe a sigh of relief: Even if VJ is no longer the genius he was, at least he will be normal.

But that relief is tragically short-lived, for all too soon VJ begins to change again. And this time, there is no cause for comfort—only terror.