Foreign Body

Zusatztext "Does for hypochondriacs what Ludlum does for paranoiacs." - Raleigh News & Observer Informationen zum Autor Robin Cook, M.D.,  is the author of more than thirty books and is credited with popularizing the medical thriller with his wildly successful first novel,  Coma . He divides his time among Florida, New Hampshire, and Boston. His most recent novels include  Host ,  Cell , and  Nano . Klappentext In this chilling new novel from the one and only Robin Cook! New York City medical examiners Laurie Montgomery and Jack Stapleton rush to India to help a UCLA student investigating medical tourism-and a sinister global conspiracy. Prologue October 15, 2007 Monday, 7:00 P.M. DELHI, INDIA Only those long-term residents of Delhi who were extraordinarily sensitive to the vicissitudes of the city's traffic patterns could tell that rush hour had peaked and was now on the downward slope. The cacophony of horns, sirens, and screeches seemed undiminished to the tortured, untrained ear. The crush appeared unabated. There were gaudily painted trucks; buses with as many riders clinging precariously to the outside and on the roof as were inside; autos, ranging from hulking Mercedes to diminutive Marutis; throngs of black-and-yellow taxis; auto rickshaws; various motorcycles and scooters, many carrying entire families; and swarms of black, aged bicycles. Thousands of pedestrians wove in and out of the stop-and-go traffic, while hordes of dirty children dressed in rags thrust soiled hands into open windows in search of a few coins. Cows, dogs, and packs of wild monkeys wandered through the streets. Over all hung a smothering blanket of dust, smog, and general haze. For Basant Chandra, it was a typically frustrating evening commute in the city that he had lived in for his entire forty-seven years. With a population of more than fourteen million, traffic had to be tolerated, and Basant, like everyone else, had learned to cope. On this particular night he was even more tolerant than usual since he was relaxed and content from having stopped for a visit with his favorite call girl, Kaumudi. In general, Basant was a lazy, angry, and violent man who felt cheated in this life. Growing up in an upper-caste Kshatriya family, he felt his parents had married him down with a Vaishya woman, despite his father's obtaining a management position at the in-laws' pharmaceutical firm as part of the union, while he was afforded a particularly well-paying sales manager position in place of his previous job selling Tata-brand trucks. The final blow to Basant's self-esteem came with his children, five girls, aged twenty-two, sixteen, twelve, nine, and six. There had been one boy, but his wife had miscarried at five months, for which Basant openly blamed her. In his mind,—she'd done it on purpose by overworking as a harried medical doctor, practicing internal medicine at a public hospital. He could remember the day as if it were yesterday. He could have killed her. With such thoughts in mind, Basant pounded his steering wheel in frustration as he glided into the reserved parking slot in front of his parents' house, where he and his family lived. It was a soiled three-story concrete structure that had been painted white at some indeterminate time in the past. The roof was flat and the window frames metal. On the first floor was a small office where his wife, Meeta, occasionally saw her few private patients. The rest of the first floor housed his aging parents. Basant and his family occupied the second floor, and his younger brother, Tapasbrati, and his family were on the third. As Basant was critically eyeing his house, which was hardly the style that he expected to be living in at this stage of his life, he became aware of a car pulling up behind him, blocking him in. Gazing in the rearview mirror, he had to squint against the car's ...

Product details

• Authors: Robin Cook
• Publisher: Putnam Publishing Group
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 28.07.2009
• EAN: 9780425228951
• ISBN: 978-0-425-22895-1
• No. of pages: 528
• Dimensions: 108 mm x 190 mm x 27 mm
• Series: Berkley Paperbacks; Medical Thriller; Medical Thriller; Penguin Publishing Group
• Subject: Fiction > Suspense