Viral

March 1, 2021

In this timely thriller, Emma Murphy falls ill while vacationing with her family on Cape Cod and is rushed to the hospital in a coma, where she's diagnosed with the rare and virulent Eastern Equine Encephalitis. Then outrageous hospital bills start arriving, the insurance company balks at paying, and Emma's husband launches an investigation of underhanded medical practices.

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June 7, 2021
In this disappointing thriller from bestseller Cook (Genesis), New Yorkers Brian and Emma Murphy are vacationing on Cape Cod when Emma is bitten by an Asian tiger mosquito. Emma has violent seizures on the drive back to New York, where Brian takes her straight to the emergency room of his local hospital, Manhattan Memorial, a choice that his insurer later uses as a basis to deny coverage for an astronomical hospital bill. Even as Brian grapples with a diagnosis that Emma has eastern equine encephalitis, the hospital’s administration puts the screws on him to come up with a payment plan. Subsequent developments force Brian to seek justice in his own way. Clunky dialogue (“Having grown up in France where this type of tolerated robbery involving healthcare would never happen, how has it come to be here in the United States that hospitals and health insurance companies operate with such impunity?”) and underdeveloped characters make this one of Cook’s lesser efforts. This screed against the state of American health care will have limited appeal to suspense fans. Agent: Erica Silverman, Trident Media Group.

June 1, 2021
When Emma Murphy is stricken with a life-threatening virus, she's rushed to the hospital. She survives, but the hospital bill is enormous, and the insurance company rejects the claim. Facing financial ruin, Emma's husband, Brian, becomes determined to get retribution from a corrupt health-care system. Readers familiar with Cook's one-word-title novels, including Genesis (2019), Pandemic (2018), and, reaching back to his first and best, Coma (1977), know where this is going: Brian uncovers a massive conspiracy and risks his life to bring justice to the conspirators. As usual, the writing ranges in quality from workmanlike to "Really? They published this?", but Cook's books have always been more about the stories than the style. He is a reliable tale-teller. Readers know there will be an underdog central character, at least one easily hatable villain, and a few solid action scenes. Viral delivers exactly what it is intended: a story tailor-made for Cook's many fans.

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July 1, 2021
After his wife, Emma, contracts deadly eastern equine encephalitis and he gets taken for an obscene ride by a predatory health insurance company, ex-cop Brian Murphy fights back. When he and Emma retired from the NYPD's elite Emergency Service Unit to start a high-end personal protection security firm, they signed up for a short-term health insurance policy they didn't bother to read. After Emma falls ill following a mosquito bite and their 4-year-old daughter, Juliette, sinks into mysterious symptoms of her own, Murphy is left in an increasingly desperate state as uncovered bills soar near $200,000 and hospital officials and doctors give him the cold shoulder. He finds an ally and superior babysitter in Jeanne, a French-born woman with a background in child psychology he meets in the waiting room of a medical billing advocate. She was victimized by the same health insurance company after her husband suffered a heart attack, received inadequate treatment, and died. Oh, to have been in France, where their health care system is "so, so much better." Those expecting another outbreak thriller from the prolific author of Pandemic (2018) and Contagion (1995) will be disappointed to encounter what is largely a diatribe against the American health care system. It certainly deserves to be taken on, but Cook's priggish lectures about this hotbed of "personal greed trumping altruism" stop the novel in its tracks. The same confrontations are staged over and over, with the protagonist seemingly unable to read the writing on the wall or recognize obvious things until long after the reader has. And what the reader will see as unhinged behavior on Murphy's part, Cook somehow sees as reasonable. The book can be oddly compelling but goes off the rails in any number of ways. The "duhs" outnumber the thrills in the 81-year-old Cook's latest.

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