StemCell Therapy

mutilated corpses, forensic pathologists brandishing scalpels can be found there. So its no surprise that Robin Cook has set 12 of his medical thrillers at the facility, including his latest, Genesis.

As the novel begins, its business as usual at OCME, but it all changes when Dr. Aria Nichols arrives to spend a month there as part of her training. The young woman is bright, and she possesses an encyclopedic knowledge of pathology, but her superiors and co-workers cant stand her. Thats because she ignores rules and orders and cant open her mouth without uttering profanities.

One day, Aria autopsies the body of a social worker who was found rotting in her apartment after an apparent drug overdose. To her surprise, Aria finds an embryo lodged in the corpses uterus.

Aria cant forgive the unknown man who got the social worker pregnant and then abandoned her. She wants to find him and learn what role he played in the tragedy.

The deceased womans colleague and best friend, Madison Bryant, suggests that they look for him in genetic genealogys DNA databases. Since the DNA of the mother and her fetus are already known, identifying the father couldnt be difficult, she says.

Aria agrees, but the next day, Madison is pushed under a subway car, and while she is in the hospital, shes murdered.

The familiar protagonists of Cooks OCME series, Laurie Montgomery and Jack Stapleton, appear in Genesis, but they are mired in family problems, so they do little to make the novel suspenseful.

Scaring his readers silly isnt what Cook is aiming at. With his thrillers, he clearly hopes to educate the public about a major scientific topic of the day. With Genesis, he successfully sheds light on genetic genealogy and some privacy concerns involving its ever-expanding DNA databases.

Originally posted here:
Review: Cooks new thriller sheds light on genetic genealogy - The San Diego Union-Tribune

This entry was posted on December 10, 2019 at 5:44 pm and is filed under Genetics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed. |