Review Tuesday: OUTBREAK by Robin Cook

I grabbed the first book on the stack and drew OUTBREAK by Robin Cook this time.

An epidemoligist, Dr. Marissa Blumanthal, for the Atlanta Center for Disease Control (CDC) notices too many coincidences when there are multiple Ebola outbreaks across the United States.

I don't think I've ever read Robin Cook before, but he's the mastermind behind COMA. His medical background and imagination allows him to create very realistic feeling fiction that moves at a fast pace. In this novel the main character, Dr. Marissa Blumanthal, newly employed by the CDC, is thrown into the thick of an unknown outbreak in LA. It turns out to be Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever, which is more than 90% fatal. Then it appears in another city. And another. There are too many similarities between these outbreaks not to find them suspicious while each clocks in a higher death count. Our heroine begins on a cross country path to the truth while trying to keep from falling into the hands of the culprits.

Fast paced with many twists and turns.

In addition, since this was written back in 1988, a very different world is described. One with no cell phones, email, or internet. I found myself almost losing my patience thinking, couldn't she just run a web search on that? or why is she TYPING a letter? just send an email! during various parts of the book. In a way, I think the lack of our modern conveniences made the story that much more fun because she didn't have the power at her fingertips that we now do. Hell, if this story were updated to current day it might have needed half as many pages!

All those observations aside, I did see the ending coming a million miles away. I guess I've read enough mystery novels to but two and two together myself and figure out who really was the bad guy and who would end up the surprise good guy.

Still, well worth reading.

Find a copy on AMAZON.