Contagion

A terrifying story of a disease spread not only by microbes but by man'sgreed. After losing first his Midwestern ophthalmology practice to a for-profit medicalgiant and then his family to a commuter airline tragedy, Dr. John Stapleton's life istransformed to ashes. Feeling less the golden boy than a jaded cynic, Stapleton retrains inforensic pathology and relocates to find an uneasy niche for himself in a city that suits hischanged perspective: the cold, indifferent, concrete maze of New York. Stapleton thinks he is past pain and past caring, but as a series of virulent andextremely lethal illnesses - capped by a particularly deadly outbreak of a rare strain ofinfluenza - strike the young, the old, and the innocent, his suspicions are aroused. Whenthe apparent epicenters of these outbreaks are revealed to be hospitals and clinicscontrolled by the same for-profit giant that cannibalized his old ophthalmology practice,Stapleton fears he has stumbled upon a diabolic conspiracy of catastrophic proportions:Could the for-profit giant be engaged in the systematic elimination of its more costlysubscribers? Getting at the truth leads to Stapelton's unlikely pairing - both professionally andpersonally - with Theresa Hagen, an art director at a hot Madison Avenue advertisingfirm. Together they discover that the real explanation behind the killer contagion is evenmore Machiavellian than could be imagined. Contagion anticipates some of the uncharted consequences of managedhealthcare, in an age when even the wariest consumer may be a risk. It is Robin Cook athis unerring best.