Genesis by Robin Cook
Everyone knows the cliché not to judge a book by its cover, but to judge one by its first page? We do that all the time. Browsing in bookstores, I’ve opened countless novels, read page one and placed it back on the shelf. For literary agents and editors, this is a necessary life skill. It’s the reality of publishing. The flood of manuscripts necessitates it. Serious readers judge books by the first page as a matter of course.
Based on this less-than-fair — though standard — snapshot, I might have passed on Robin Cook’s 37th medical thriller, Genesis (G.P. Putnam’s Sons) (more on this later …). If I did, though, it would have been my loss.
Because with Genesis, the 12th book in his Laurie Montgomery/Jack Stapleton series, featuring the now-wed New York City pathologists, Cook again delivers a satisfying thriller set in the disorienting world of modern medicine.
When the action enters the corridors of hospitals, Cook knows his way around. He’s an M.D. himself and is credited with creating and popularizing the medical thriller genre. You don’t get to publish over three dozen novels, some of which have been New York Times bestsellers, by accident. Cook has an uncanny talent for translating the most arcane advances in medicine and weaving them into compelling whodunits.
CUTTING-EDGE GENEALOGICAL INVESTIGATION
In Genesis, the focus is on genetic genealogy. It’s about “taking advantage of the huge ancestral DNA database that now exists” and using it as a forensic tool. This is heady stuff. Every day more and more folks freely submit their DNA to ancestry firms in hopes of learning more about their genetic past. This data can be golden if, say, a pathologist is looking to piece together a perpetrator’s genome.
The plot of Genesis is set in motion when a fetus is discovered inside a young woman who died of an apparent fentanyl overdose. An opioid OD is plenty common these days, and this looks like another in long sad line. However, this one doesn’t add up. The dead woman wasn’t a drug user, at least as far as her friends and family knew, and none of the telltale signs of an addict is present.
The highlight of the narrative arrives in the character of Laurie Montgomery’s new pathology resident. Alongside the Chief Medical Examiner comes Dr. Aria Nichols, a scarred but privileged New York City girl with a pronounced distaste for men, thanks to a rich asshole father and an even worse stepfather. But it’s not just males that put off Dr. Nichols; it’s pretty much all patients. Hence, pathology — the dead she can deal with.
She’s the one who takes over the best stretches of the book. While this is ostensibly another in Cook’s Laurie Montgomery /Jack Stapleton series, it’s Aria who leads the genealogical investigation, as Montgomery is forced to reckon with a personal health crisis that shifts her from doctor to patient.
A THRILLING MYSTERY LIES BEYOND PAGE ONE
Now, back to the book’s first page. There is a geographical error that will bother anyone familiar with New York City: 23rd Street is not “the Lower East Side.” This is the first, but not the only instance where Cook betrays a lack of familiarity with the city setting. It sets a frustrating tone — particularly if you happen to live in Manhattan.
Then there is the opening scene itself, which is perhaps the least sexy sex scene I can remember reading. Maybe that was the intent: to deconstruct the act of creation in the most clinical of terms. Fair enough, but if humans thought of sex this way, it’s safe to say the world’s population would be considerably smaller.
These early missteps can be hard to get past in Robin Cook’s latest, but his readers know what they can count on by now. Once again, Cook knows how to inject the thrills into a medical mystery.
Read our interview with Robin Cook on his previous novel, Pandemic, and the origins of Genesis, here.
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