FEVER

by Robin Cook ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 25, 1981

Though poorly written, Coma and (to a lesser extent) Brain provided distinctive goose-bumps by turning the real scariness of modern hospitals into spooky, slightly sci-fi-ish, old-horror-movie scariness. This time, however, the subject is cancer, the approach is melodramatically shrill, and the plotting is merely implausible instead of imaginative and eerie. Cook's doctor-hero here is cancer researcher Charles Martel of Boston's Weinburger Institute, whose first wife died of lymphoma; and now, on the same day that Charles is ordered to abandon his promising immunological research and take over the work on chemotherapeutic ""Canceran"" instead, he learns that his twelve-year-old daughter Michelle has acute myeloblastic leukemia. Thus, we follow Charles--increasingly hysterical--as he rushes back and forth between Michelle's hospital (where chemotherapy seems to be doing no good) and the Institute (where the pressure is on to complete the Canceran tests). Furthermore, Charles suddenly realizes that Michelle's leukemia was caused by benzene waste-materials in the river near their home; so he also rushes around trying to get the guilty chemical plant closed down--a quest which only leads to bureaucracy, frustration, and anger, especially when Charles discovers that the huge Breur Chemical Co. (which wants to market Canceran) secretly owns both that polluting plant and the Weinburger Institute itself! Finally, then, Charles kidnaps Michelle from the hospital, determined to treat her himself: he holes up in his house, with help from confused wife #2 Cathryn, and tests his cancer-cure theory on Michelle (which involves injecting himself with her cells and vice versa). . . while a psychopathic local sheriff and hit-men from Breur Chemical storm the place. Result? Happy endings all around: the ""first example of harnessing the body to cure itself of an established leukemia""--and even Charles' rotten son becomes a hero at the last minute. Unfortunately, however, the comic-strip style that worked for Cook's make-believe shockers (cartoon villains, atrocious dialogue, corny plotting) is hopeless in this more grimly realistic story; and every idea here--the politics of cancer research, the ""protocol"" of cancer treatment, pollution as a cause of cancer--has been dramatized better elsewhere. So fans expecting another Coma or Brain will be disappointed. And the downbeat subject matter may turn off some of the Cook regulars right from the start.

Pub Date: Feb. 25, 1981

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Putnam

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1981

Categories: FICTION