PW Publishers Weekly

Review Source: Publishers Weekly

Review Date: 2009-06-15

Copyright: (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

In this uneven medical thriller from bestseller Cook (Foreign Body), Dr. Jack Stapleton, a New York City forensic pathologist who lost his first wife and their two children in a plane crash, is devastated when his newborn son by his second wife is diagnosed with high-risk neuroblastoma. As a diversion from his efforts to find a cure for his son, Stapleton seeks to expose unscrupulous practitioners of alternative medicine. In particular, he investigates the death of a healthy woman whose vertebral arteries were damaged by a chiropractor. Then the plot swerves into Da Vinci Code territory as two of Stapleton's college friends-the archbishop of New York and an archeologist-battle over skeletal remains that may be those of the Virgin Mary. When the characters themselves comment on the events as something out of a horror movie or a book, suspension of disbelief becomes even more of a challenge (e.g., "He felt like he was a participant in a kind of unfolding real-life mystery-thriller"). (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

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