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Jack Stapleton and Laurie Montgomery #9
Intervention
New York Times -bestselling author Robin Cook returns with another ripped-from-the-headlines medical thriller, where DNA science, biotechnology, and religion collide.
I t's been more than thirty years since New York City medical examiner Jack Stapleton's college graduation and almost as long since he'd been in touch with former classmates Shawn Doherty and Kevin Murray. Once a highly regarded ophthalmologist, Jack's career took a dramatic turn after a tragic accident that destroyed his family. But that, too, is very much in the Jack has remarried-to longtime colleague and fellow medical examiner Laurie Montgomery-and is the father of a young child. But his renegade, activist personality can't rest, and after performing a postmortem on a young college student who had recently been treated by a chiropractor, Jack decides to explore alternative medicine. What makes some people step outside the medical establishment to seek care from practitioners of Eastern philosophies and even faith healers?
Jack's classmate Shawn Doherty is now a renowned archeologist and biblical scholar at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, whose taste for good wine and generally deteriorating health are taking a toll on his career. He has recently obtained permission for a final dig beneath Saint Peter's, and despite his long-standing grudge against the Catholic Church, begins his research-which eventually takes him to Jerusalem and Venice -only to make a startling discovery with ecclesiastical and medical implications. And when James O'Rourke, now Bishop of the Archdiocese of New York, gets wind of Shawn's findings, he's desperate to keep them from the public. James has strong political ambitions within the Church, but his association with Shawn threatens to undermine them. James turns to his old friend Jack to help protect an explosive secret-one with the power to change lives forever.
I t's been more than thirty years since New York City medical examiner Jack Stapleton's college graduation and almost as long since he'd been in touch with former classmates Shawn Doherty and Kevin Murray. Once a highly regarded ophthalmologist, Jack's career took a dramatic turn after a tragic accident that destroyed his family. But that, too, is very much in the Jack has remarried-to longtime colleague and fellow medical examiner Laurie Montgomery-and is the father of a young child. But his renegade, activist personality can't rest, and after performing a postmortem on a young college student who had recently been treated by a chiropractor, Jack decides to explore alternative medicine. What makes some people step outside the medical establishment to seek care from practitioners of Eastern philosophies and even faith healers?
Jack's classmate Shawn Doherty is now a renowned archeologist and biblical scholar at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, whose taste for good wine and generally deteriorating health are taking a toll on his career. He has recently obtained permission for a final dig beneath Saint Peter's, and despite his long-standing grudge against the Catholic Church, begins his research-which eventually takes him to Jerusalem and Venice -only to make a startling discovery with ecclesiastical and medical implications. And when James O'Rourke, now Bishop of the Archdiocese of New York, gets wind of Shawn's findings, he's desperate to keep them from the public. James has strong political ambitions within the Church, but his association with Shawn threatens to undermine them. James turns to his old friend Jack to help protect an explosive secret-one with the power to change lives forever.
387 pages, Hardcover
First published August 11, 2009
408 people are currently reading
2674 people want to read
About the author
Robin Cook
190 books5,057 followersLibrarian Note: Not to be confused with British novelist Robin Cook a pseudonym of Robert William Arthur Cook.
Dr. Robin Cook (born May 4, 1940 in New York City, New York) is an American doctor / novelist who writes about medicine, biotechnology, and topics affecting public health.
He is best known for being the author who created the medical-thriller genre by combining medical writing with the thriller genre of writing. His books have been bestsellers on the "New York Times" Bestseller List with several at #1. A number of his books have also been featured in Reader's Digest. Many were also featured in the Literary Guild. Many have been made into motion pictures.
Cook is a graduate of Wesleyan University and Columbia University School of Medicine. He finished his postgraduate medical training at Harvard that included general surgery and ophthalmology. He divides his time between homes in Florida, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts where he lives with his wife Jean. He is currently on leave from the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary. He has successfully combined medical fact with fiction to produce a succession of bestselling books. Cook's medical thrillers are designed, in part, to make the public aware of both the technological possibilities of modern medicine and the ensuing ethical conundrums.
Cook got a taste of the larger world when the Cousteau Society recruited him to run its blood - gas lab in the South of France while he was in medical school. Intrigued by diving, he later called on a connection he made through Jacques Cousteau to become an aquanaut with the US Navy Sealab when he was drafted in the 60's. During his navy career he served on a nuclear submarine for a seventy-five day stay underwater where he wrote his first book! [1]
Cook was a private member of the Woodrow Wilson Center's Board of Trustees, appointed to a six-year term by the President George W. Bush.[2]
[edit] Doctor / Novelist
Dr. Cook's profession as a doctor has provided him with ideas and background for many of his novels. In each of his novels, he strives to write about the issues at the forefront of current medical practice.
To date, he has explored issues such as organ donation, genetic engineering,fertility treatment, medical research funding, managed care, medical malpractice, drug research, drug pricing, specialty hospitals, stem cells, and organ transplantation.[3]
Dr. Cook has been remarked to have an uncanny ability to anticipate national controversy. In an interview with Dr.Cook, Stephen McDonald talked to him about his novel Shock; Cook admits the timing of Shock was fortuitous. "I suppose that you could say that it's the most like Coma in that it deals with an issue that everybody seems to be concerned about," he says, "I wrote this book to address the stem cell issue, which the public really doesn't know much about. Besides entertaining readers, my main goal is to get people interested in some of these issues, because it's the public that ultimately really should decide which way we ought to go in something as that has enormous potential for treating disease and disability but touches up against the ethically problematic abortion issue."[4]
Keeping his lab coat handy helps him turn our fear of doctors into bestsellers. "I joke that if my books stop selling, I can always fall back on brain surgery," he says. "But I am still very interested in being a doctor. If I had to do it over again, I would still study medicine. I think of myself more as a doctor who writes, rather than a writer who happens to be a doctor." After 35 books,he has come up with a diagnosis to explain why his medical thrillers remain so popular. "The main reason is, we all realize we are at risk. We're all going to be patients sometime," he says. "You can write about great white sharks or haunted houses, and you can say I'm not going into the ocean or I'm not going in haunted houses, but you can't say you're n
Dr. Robin Cook (born May 4, 1940 in New York City, New York) is an American doctor / novelist who writes about medicine, biotechnology, and topics affecting public health.
He is best known for being the author who created the medical-thriller genre by combining medical writing with the thriller genre of writing. His books have been bestsellers on the "New York Times" Bestseller List with several at #1. A number of his books have also been featured in Reader's Digest. Many were also featured in the Literary Guild. Many have been made into motion pictures.
Cook is a graduate of Wesleyan University and Columbia University School of Medicine. He finished his postgraduate medical training at Harvard that included general surgery and ophthalmology. He divides his time between homes in Florida, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts where he lives with his wife Jean. He is currently on leave from the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary. He has successfully combined medical fact with fiction to produce a succession of bestselling books. Cook's medical thrillers are designed, in part, to make the public aware of both the technological possibilities of modern medicine and the ensuing ethical conundrums.
Cook got a taste of the larger world when the Cousteau Society recruited him to run its blood - gas lab in the South of France while he was in medical school. Intrigued by diving, he later called on a connection he made through Jacques Cousteau to become an aquanaut with the US Navy Sealab when he was drafted in the 60's. During his navy career he served on a nuclear submarine for a seventy-five day stay underwater where he wrote his first book! [1]
Cook was a private member of the Woodrow Wilson Center's Board of Trustees, appointed to a six-year term by the President George W. Bush.[2]
[edit] Doctor / Novelist
Dr. Cook's profession as a doctor has provided him with ideas and background for many of his novels. In each of his novels, he strives to write about the issues at the forefront of current medical practice.
To date, he has explored issues such as organ donation, genetic engineering,fertility treatment, medical research funding, managed care, medical malpractice, drug research, drug pricing, specialty hospitals, stem cells, and organ transplantation.[3]
Dr. Cook has been remarked to have an uncanny ability to anticipate national controversy. In an interview with Dr.Cook, Stephen McDonald talked to him about his novel Shock; Cook admits the timing of Shock was fortuitous. "I suppose that you could say that it's the most like Coma in that it deals with an issue that everybody seems to be concerned about," he says, "I wrote this book to address the stem cell issue, which the public really doesn't know much about. Besides entertaining readers, my main goal is to get people interested in some of these issues, because it's the public that ultimately really should decide which way we ought to go in something as that has enormous potential for treating disease and disability but touches up against the ethically problematic abortion issue."[4]
Keeping his lab coat handy helps him turn our fear of doctors into bestsellers. "I joke that if my books stop selling, I can always fall back on brain surgery," he says. "But I am still very interested in being a doctor. If I had to do it over again, I would still study medicine. I think of myself more as a doctor who writes, rather than a writer who happens to be a doctor." After 35 books,he has come up with a diagnosis to explain why his medical thrillers remain so popular. "The main reason is, we all realize we are at risk. We're all going to be patients sometime," he says. "You can write about great white sharks or haunted houses, and you can say I'm not going into the ocean or I'm not going in haunted houses, but you can't say you're n
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 522 reviews
November 23, 2025
Clearly, Robin Cook is fresh out of ideas ...
... and even those ideas he does have these days are executed in a half-baked fashion and poorly executed.
The first half of INTERVENTION (and, for my money, far and away the better half of the book) is an extended diatribe against alternative medicines and therapies such as acupuncture and homeopathy. In particular, Robin Cook, as an MD, clearly has some serious issues with chiropractic medicine.
The story starts with some promise as his returning favourite character, Jack Stapleton, New York City medical examiner, conducts a one man epidemiological study of vertebral artery dissections ostensibly caused by, shall we say, overly aggressive chiropractic cervical manipulations. Whether or not Robin Cook's obvious rant against chiropractic medicine is fundamentally sound is not for me to judge but, I will say, that as the foundation for a medical thriller, it had definite bite to it and was coming up in roses at around the halfway point of the book. That is, it was until Stapleton (or was it, in fact, Robin Cook) decided that the public so wanted to believe in the efficacy of alternative therapies that they simply wouldn't accept any efforts to shut them down or bring them under more serious regulation. And, that was all she wrote ... poof, end of plot-line, end of story, dropped like the proverbial hot potato and this poor reader was left with his jaw hanging slackly asking "Wha' happen?".
I guess that one didn't work out so it was onto plot line #2 and we'll see how that goes!
In this part, Robin Cook attempts an excursion deep into science vs religion territory in which he works with an archaeologist friend who claims to have discovered the bones of the Virgin Mary in a crypt underneath the Vatican. The story ends on a ridiculous, completely ambiguous note surrounding the miraculous cure of his son's neuroblastoma but, like the first half of the book, no real plot resolution is ever reached.
So what did these two ideas have to do with one another and how were the two threads united into a single story? Good question indeed! So far as I could see the answer is, "Nothing at all!" to the first question and "They weren't!" to the second question. So what we really have here is two exceptionally poorly executed vast ideas butted together to form (dare I say it?) a half-vast whole which is an utter waste of precious reading time and a sad testament to the thriller writer who can probably lay claim to the foundation of the medical thriller genre. Hang up those spurs, Mr Cook, and retire with dignity. I can't imagine you need the money!
Not recommended.
Paul Weiss
... and even those ideas he does have these days are executed in a half-baked fashion and poorly executed.
The first half of INTERVENTION (and, for my money, far and away the better half of the book) is an extended diatribe against alternative medicines and therapies such as acupuncture and homeopathy. In particular, Robin Cook, as an MD, clearly has some serious issues with chiropractic medicine.
The story starts with some promise as his returning favourite character, Jack Stapleton, New York City medical examiner, conducts a one man epidemiological study of vertebral artery dissections ostensibly caused by, shall we say, overly aggressive chiropractic cervical manipulations. Whether or not Robin Cook's obvious rant against chiropractic medicine is fundamentally sound is not for me to judge but, I will say, that as the foundation for a medical thriller, it had definite bite to it and was coming up in roses at around the halfway point of the book. That is, it was until Stapleton (or was it, in fact, Robin Cook) decided that the public so wanted to believe in the efficacy of alternative therapies that they simply wouldn't accept any efforts to shut them down or bring them under more serious regulation. And, that was all she wrote ... poof, end of plot-line, end of story, dropped like the proverbial hot potato and this poor reader was left with his jaw hanging slackly asking "Wha' happen?".
I guess that one didn't work out so it was onto plot line #2 and we'll see how that goes!
In this part, Robin Cook attempts an excursion deep into science vs religion territory in which he works with an archaeologist friend who claims to have discovered the bones of the Virgin Mary in a crypt underneath the Vatican. The story ends on a ridiculous, completely ambiguous note surrounding the miraculous cure of his son's neuroblastoma but, like the first half of the book, no real plot resolution is ever reached.
So what did these two ideas have to do with one another and how were the two threads united into a single story? Good question indeed! So far as I could see the answer is, "Nothing at all!" to the first question and "They weren't!" to the second question. So what we really have here is two exceptionally poorly executed vast ideas butted together to form (dare I say it?) a half-vast whole which is an utter waste of precious reading time and a sad testament to the thriller writer who can probably lay claim to the foundation of the medical thriller genre. Hang up those spurs, Mr Cook, and retire with dignity. I can't imagine you need the money!
Not recommended.
Paul Weiss
May 21, 2025
This is part of a series but can be read as a stand alone. In this one Jack is studying a death that might have been caused by a chiropractor. Meanwhile in an unrelated issue an archeologist believes he might have stumbled on how to discover where the Virgin Mary's bones are buried.
The negative reviews on this site got this one right. Honestly I wavered between one and two stars. From this series a couple of books ago I commented on how Cook channeled his inner John Grisham. In this one he decides to channel his inner Dan Brown. What happened to him writing medical thrillers? The thing is that this book started that way. Jack investigating a wrongful death and the reader wonders if this could really happen. That is why I pick up a Robin Cook novel. But in the middle of the investigation Jack just stops and says that no one cares. Huh? Why did I waste my time then? This came off as a diatribe from the author and he just needed a platform to rant. So we segue into the Dan Brown aspect. There is a reason Brown's books are successful and this book does not have those reasons. The character's from this plot line were not exactly likeable. I was interested in the plot until the end. That was a cop out.
This is several books in a row from this series that I have not enjoyed. Is it time to give up on this series? Robin Cook was one of my first authors many years ago. I have always thought he was the master of the medical thriller. Where is that author? Instead I am getting novels that are similar to other authors. If I wanted to read that type of book I would go to those authors. Inversely I do not go to those authors for a medical thriller which I thought I was getting with this book. Cook needs to get back to those. I will pick up the next one in this series but I am in no hurry to do so.
The negative reviews on this site got this one right. Honestly I wavered between one and two stars. From this series a couple of books ago I commented on how Cook channeled his inner John Grisham. In this one he decides to channel his inner Dan Brown. What happened to him writing medical thrillers? The thing is that this book started that way. Jack investigating a wrongful death and the reader wonders if this could really happen. That is why I pick up a Robin Cook novel. But in the middle of the investigation Jack just stops and says that no one cares. Huh? Why did I waste my time then? This came off as a diatribe from the author and he just needed a platform to rant. So we segue into the Dan Brown aspect. There is a reason Brown's books are successful and this book does not have those reasons. The character's from this plot line were not exactly likeable. I was interested in the plot until the end. That was a cop out.
This is several books in a row from this series that I have not enjoyed. Is it time to give up on this series? Robin Cook was one of my first authors many years ago. I have always thought he was the master of the medical thriller. Where is that author? Instead I am getting novels that are similar to other authors. If I wanted to read that type of book I would go to those authors. Inversely I do not go to those authors for a medical thriller which I thought I was getting with this book. Cook needs to get back to those. I will pick up the next one in this series but I am in no hurry to do so.
September 26, 2009
3 for idea; 2 for execution; 1 for ending; , September 22, 2009
First things first -- this is NOT a medical thriller. This is a combination of anti-alternative medicine rant and a diatribe against Christian zealotry -- or, even worse, a conspiracy story of mediocre proportion.
There are two things going on in this novel: the original plot line of Jack investigating an untimely death caused by chiropractic cervical manipulation (producing VAD) and his subsequent out of control behavior when confronting the issue and trying to educate a sanguine group of consumers who spoke of alternative medicine in glowing terms despite his trying to tell them that it was not science and that it was dangerous. The other plot was about a couple, one an archeologist and old friend of Jack's named Shawn, and the other a DNA scientist, who buys a codex while at a conference in Egpyt and steal an ossuary that purportedly contains the bones of Mary, Mother of God from St. Peter's Tomb in Rome. If this wasn't enough, we learn that Jack and Laurie have a newborn afflicted with severe neuroblastoma.
The entire story was running parallel for a short time and then Jack dropped his obsession with the investigation of alternative medicine and attached himself to the couple who was examining the bones and the codex in labs provided by Jack's superiors in the medical pathology/examiner's building in New York. Once back in the USA, the couple gets far enough along in their work to make an amazing discovery.Unfortunately, a third friend of theirs -- conveniently the Archbishop of New York and a Cardinal named James, is upset about Shawn and his wife possibly revealing that Mary wasn't assumed into heaven after all and thus demonstrating that papal ex cathedra decree is infallible after all! In a panic, James hires a zealot to try to talk Shawn and his wife, Sana, into keeping their discovery a secret and not publishing the story.
For awhile I was really liking this book. Wondering why there were so many negative reviews. Well, the last 25 pages showed me why.
Oh my gosh, what a horrible ending and what a cheap way to end a book. I was very disappointed.
Don't buy this one. I don't know why Robin Cook doesn't write straight forward medical thrillers anymore. It saddens me since it is my favorite genre.
First things first -- this is NOT a medical thriller. This is a combination of anti-alternative medicine rant and a diatribe against Christian zealotry -- or, even worse, a conspiracy story of mediocre proportion.
There are two things going on in this novel: the original plot line of Jack investigating an untimely death caused by chiropractic cervical manipulation (producing VAD) and his subsequent out of control behavior when confronting the issue and trying to educate a sanguine group of consumers who spoke of alternative medicine in glowing terms despite his trying to tell them that it was not science and that it was dangerous. The other plot was about a couple, one an archeologist and old friend of Jack's named Shawn, and the other a DNA scientist, who buys a codex while at a conference in Egpyt and steal an ossuary that purportedly contains the bones of Mary, Mother of God from St. Peter's Tomb in Rome. If this wasn't enough, we learn that Jack and Laurie have a newborn afflicted with severe neuroblastoma.
The entire story was running parallel for a short time and then Jack dropped his obsession with the investigation of alternative medicine and attached himself to the couple who was examining the bones and the codex in labs provided by Jack's superiors in the medical pathology/examiner's building in New York. Once back in the USA, the couple gets far enough along in their work to make an amazing discovery.Unfortunately, a third friend of theirs -- conveniently the Archbishop of New York and a Cardinal named James, is upset about Shawn and his wife possibly revealing that Mary wasn't assumed into heaven after all and thus demonstrating that papal ex cathedra decree is infallible after all! In a panic, James hires a zealot to try to talk Shawn and his wife, Sana, into keeping their discovery a secret and not publishing the story.
For awhile I was really liking this book. Wondering why there were so many negative reviews. Well, the last 25 pages showed me why.
Oh my gosh, what a horrible ending and what a cheap way to end a book. I was very disappointed.
Don't buy this one. I don't know why Robin Cook doesn't write straight forward medical thrillers anymore. It saddens me since it is my favorite genre.
August 9, 2011
One of the few authors who has managed to grab my attention and keep me indulged is Robin Cook. Having read almost all his other works, it was an easy choice for me to pick Intervention at Landmark, Spencer’s Plaza, where I had been recently. (My love affair with Landmark demands a separate post altogether. I just can’t resist buying books at Landmark, something that I can do at Crossword for some reason).
I was expecting a medical thriller again in some other form, probably something like a doctor(s) making an odd intervention during patient treatment. To say I was disappointed is an understatement. The book is more on the lines of Da Vinci Code or Angels and Demons, only without the mystery or thrill associated with them. The lead characters we are so well acquainted with, Jack Stapleton and Laurie Montgomery, seem to have little to do with the storyline. It almost seems that Cook has made a story to try and match with Dan Brown’s creations, which he does not manage to. The bizarre end to the plot tops it all.
I remember reading elsewhere that Cook is a trained ophthalmologist, and also has extensive knowledge about archaeology and religion. However, he falters in putting his knowledge to good use, maybe for the first time ever.
In short, skip it.
I was expecting a medical thriller again in some other form, probably something like a doctor(s) making an odd intervention during patient treatment. To say I was disappointed is an understatement. The book is more on the lines of Da Vinci Code or Angels and Demons, only without the mystery or thrill associated with them. The lead characters we are so well acquainted with, Jack Stapleton and Laurie Montgomery, seem to have little to do with the storyline. It almost seems that Cook has made a story to try and match with Dan Brown’s creations, which he does not manage to. The bizarre end to the plot tops it all.
I remember reading elsewhere that Cook is a trained ophthalmologist, and also has extensive knowledge about archaeology and religion. However, he falters in putting his knowledge to good use, maybe for the first time ever.
In short, skip it.
February 11, 2013
You always start a Robin Cook novel with a prayer--please Robin, with all your millions, hire a dialogue coach, so that your characters will stop talking like cut-out dolls better suited to English as a Second Language textbooks.
If only he would do that, then the Harlequin Romance sensibilities he also brings to his works would be more tolerable.
Nevertheless, I generally enjoy Robin, and were it not for this book, I would gladly award him the Most Improved Author Golden Keyboard, or whatever, for he has gotten much better in these departments, since his breathtakingly awful early stabs at modern English. His plots are always good, his viewpoints humane.
Sadly, not here. As 76 pages of comments over three years here attest, he has seriously gone off the rails and out of his depth (a mixed metaphor maybe--just imagine a train going off a trestle bridge). He begins with one storyline--a death induced by chiropractic medicine--which in itself carries the potential for a complete book. Jack confronts the man. The chiropractor launches a defamation suit--how will Jack respond? Will there be a trial? Will Jack launch a counter claim of murder or wrongful death? Drama in the courtroom?
Noooo! Robin completely abandons this storyline, and we never hear of the chiropractor, his lawsuit, Jack's vendetta against alternative medicine, again.
Instead we are abruptly served up two new characters, a squabbling couple, Shawn and Sana, who carry out an unbelievable Indiana Jones raid on St. Peter's in Rome, discovering what might be an ossuary containing the remains of the Virgin Mary.
This is bad news for yet another new character, Cardinal James of New York, because according to Roman Catholicism, the Virgin was assumed physically to heaven, i.e., no remains should exist. From here on, the book goes into an irrevocable tailspin, as polemic is piled on polemic on dogma, and you start muttering to yourself "what? what? what IS this?"
Now many other readers here can further elaborate the basic story, but a glaringly obvious question presents itself here, which is never asked, never alluded to by any of the characters. If Cardinal James, exemplifying the supreme arrogance of this particular brand of organized religion, is so darn sure he and it have got the Monopoly on Truth, why oh why do they always go ballistic if anything is presented to contradict them? If the Church is always right, where's the challenge? What's the big deal? Why sick the Spanish Inquisition onto anybody if you know what's what and God is on your side?
One dreams, begs for some George Carlin like character to appear and put everybody in their place, but of course this does not happen. Everybody seems to be a good little Catholic in the book, even the ones who are not Catholic. Everybody wants to save the Church, even if it means suppressing reality. Nobody points out the contradictions in the Cardinal's logic, which is age-old and responsible for untold misery and suffering through world history.
The book oozes on, throwing up one non-event after another, until it closes with a literal bang near the finish, that oddly, doesn't seem to put out Jack too much, even if it involves those near and dear to him. But then, he's depressed as a rule, makes his living with the dead, and of course, he is written in the equivalent of Google 'moderate', so we shouldn't be surprised.
Fortunately, Robin returns to form since this aberration, 'Death Benefit' being one example I enjoyed a little while ago.
If only he would do that, then the Harlequin Romance sensibilities he also brings to his works would be more tolerable.
Nevertheless, I generally enjoy Robin, and were it not for this book, I would gladly award him the Most Improved Author Golden Keyboard, or whatever, for he has gotten much better in these departments, since his breathtakingly awful early stabs at modern English. His plots are always good, his viewpoints humane.
Sadly, not here. As 76 pages of comments over three years here attest, he has seriously gone off the rails and out of his depth (a mixed metaphor maybe--just imagine a train going off a trestle bridge). He begins with one storyline--a death induced by chiropractic medicine--which in itself carries the potential for a complete book. Jack confronts the man. The chiropractor launches a defamation suit--how will Jack respond? Will there be a trial? Will Jack launch a counter claim of murder or wrongful death? Drama in the courtroom?
Noooo! Robin completely abandons this storyline, and we never hear of the chiropractor, his lawsuit, Jack's vendetta against alternative medicine, again.
Instead we are abruptly served up two new characters, a squabbling couple, Shawn and Sana, who carry out an unbelievable Indiana Jones raid on St. Peter's in Rome, discovering what might be an ossuary containing the remains of the Virgin Mary.
This is bad news for yet another new character, Cardinal James of New York, because according to Roman Catholicism, the Virgin was assumed physically to heaven, i.e., no remains should exist. From here on, the book goes into an irrevocable tailspin, as polemic is piled on polemic on dogma, and you start muttering to yourself "what? what? what IS this?"
Now many other readers here can further elaborate the basic story, but a glaringly obvious question presents itself here, which is never asked, never alluded to by any of the characters. If Cardinal James, exemplifying the supreme arrogance of this particular brand of organized religion, is so darn sure he and it have got the Monopoly on Truth, why oh why do they always go ballistic if anything is presented to contradict them? If the Church is always right, where's the challenge? What's the big deal? Why sick the Spanish Inquisition onto anybody if you know what's what and God is on your side?
One dreams, begs for some George Carlin like character to appear and put everybody in their place, but of course this does not happen. Everybody seems to be a good little Catholic in the book, even the ones who are not Catholic. Everybody wants to save the Church, even if it means suppressing reality. Nobody points out the contradictions in the Cardinal's logic, which is age-old and responsible for untold misery and suffering through world history.
The book oozes on, throwing up one non-event after another, until it closes with a literal bang near the finish, that oddly, doesn't seem to put out Jack too much, even if it involves those near and dear to him. But then, he's depressed as a rule, makes his living with the dead, and of course, he is written in the equivalent of Google 'moderate', so we shouldn't be surprised.
Fortunately, Robin returns to form since this aberration, 'Death Benefit' being one example I enjoyed a little while ago.
September 9, 2021
I read this Cook book years ago and I remember the protagonists stand point on alternative medicine such as chiropractic healing and other eastern health philosophies. I remember a little of the religious theme brought into it and that's about it. Reading some of the good read comments to refresh my memory hasn't helped me remember a whole lot and I can see why. Reviews about a muddled plot are apparent. Medical thriller/ Cooks views on Eastern alternative medicine/ archeology and religious implications. You can just feel the muddiness. Also, reading the comments about the horrific ending is not something I want to reread a 350 page book for. I'll leave my initial 4 star rating alone on this and won't reread this one to edit it. Although from the above and the other comments on Goodreads that I've read, I'm sure I meant 3.5 stars.
November 19, 2012
Generally I'm a big fan of Robin Cook, especially the Stapleton/Montgomery series. But quite frankly, this one didn't even seem like it was written by Robin Cook.
What we have here seems to be two separate books melded into one. There are three separate plots that don't exactly tie into one another.
Plot 1) Jack and Laurie's sick son. Little Jack Junior is diagnosed with a form of child cancer. Conventional medicine is currently failing the suffering parents and their child. So much so that Laurie even entertains seeking aid from 'alternative medicine'. This sort of ties into plot 2
Plot 2) As a result of researching and trying to debunk the actual practicality of alternative medicine as a means to help their ailing son, Jack happens upon several ME cases that show evidence of it actually HARMING patience, particularly Chiropractic medicine when used as a means to treat all sicknesses, not just back problems.
This is actually more along the lines of a good Robin Cook book. Jack digging deep into cases and amassing evidence of malpractice or snake oil salesmen calling themselves 'doctors' and ripping people off and harming them on top of it.
Unfortunately this crusade to expose the falsehoods of alternative medicines is short lived and overshadowed with plot 3 which is a TOTAL departure from anything having to do with the other concurrent plot lines
Plot 3) Jack's old college roommate and eminent archeologist finds evidence of an important religious find in an antiquities shop in Egypt. What did he find? A letter giving the location of what could possibly be the bones of the virgin Mary buried in Italy. The consequences of such a find could turn the catholic church into utter bedlam because according to dogma, Mary's bones and entire being for that matter were absorbed into heaven upon her death.
There are some interesting things to be had in this plot. Religious dogma, theories as to whether Mary had more children and if her actual bloodline still exists till this very day, etc, etc. It would have made a great book...ON ITS OWN...
There are just some very major flaws in this book. Jack just happens to have known the Cardinal of New York (the most powerful clergyman in the entire country) from the college days, and he wants Jack's help to try to derail Shawn (their common friend and archeologist who found the possible evidence of Mary's bones in egypt) to help the Catholic Church save face. The coincidence of Jack knowing such a powerful man in the church is a bit of a stretch.
Some of the methods that the Cardinal is willing to employ to save his church are quite unseemly.
The total abandonment of Jack's crusade against alternative medicine about halfway through the book if not sooner is disappointing because it was the one thing that rang true insofar as theme goes for these characters we've been reading for so long.
What makes it seem that it wasn't even Robin Cook who wrote this though was the characters themselves. Jack and Laurie in particular. Sure their personalities are in place, but the dialogue. It's very stiff and plastic. It's as if he's forgotten their voice if you will. They're acting like they're the Jack and Laurie that we've read over many books, but they don't SOUND like the same Jack and Laurie.
All that and I'm still not quite sure why the book was called Intervention or why they chose a spread of medical instruments as the book's cover...lol...a minor issue to be sure, but one that sums up my thoughts on this book: it just doesn't seem to know what it wants to be and never really becomes any one particular thing over the course of all its pages.
I'm still a fan of Robin Cook as I find his medical mysteries well written and pretty exciting but this one was just a let down.
What we have here seems to be two separate books melded into one. There are three separate plots that don't exactly tie into one another.
Plot 1) Jack and Laurie's sick son. Little Jack Junior is diagnosed with a form of child cancer. Conventional medicine is currently failing the suffering parents and their child. So much so that Laurie even entertains seeking aid from 'alternative medicine'. This sort of ties into plot 2
Plot 2) As a result of researching and trying to debunk the actual practicality of alternative medicine as a means to help their ailing son, Jack happens upon several ME cases that show evidence of it actually HARMING patience, particularly Chiropractic medicine when used as a means to treat all sicknesses, not just back problems.
This is actually more along the lines of a good Robin Cook book. Jack digging deep into cases and amassing evidence of malpractice or snake oil salesmen calling themselves 'doctors' and ripping people off and harming them on top of it.
Unfortunately this crusade to expose the falsehoods of alternative medicines is short lived and overshadowed with plot 3 which is a TOTAL departure from anything having to do with the other concurrent plot lines
Plot 3) Jack's old college roommate and eminent archeologist finds evidence of an important religious find in an antiquities shop in Egypt. What did he find? A letter giving the location of what could possibly be the bones of the virgin Mary buried in Italy. The consequences of such a find could turn the catholic church into utter bedlam because according to dogma, Mary's bones and entire being for that matter were absorbed into heaven upon her death.
There are some interesting things to be had in this plot. Religious dogma, theories as to whether Mary had more children and if her actual bloodline still exists till this very day, etc, etc. It would have made a great book...ON ITS OWN...
There are just some very major flaws in this book. Jack just happens to have known the Cardinal of New York (the most powerful clergyman in the entire country) from the college days, and he wants Jack's help to try to derail Shawn (their common friend and archeologist who found the possible evidence of Mary's bones in egypt) to help the Catholic Church save face. The coincidence of Jack knowing such a powerful man in the church is a bit of a stretch.
Some of the methods that the Cardinal is willing to employ to save his church are quite unseemly.
The total abandonment of Jack's crusade against alternative medicine about halfway through the book if not sooner is disappointing because it was the one thing that rang true insofar as theme goes for these characters we've been reading for so long.
What makes it seem that it wasn't even Robin Cook who wrote this though was the characters themselves. Jack and Laurie in particular. Sure their personalities are in place, but the dialogue. It's very stiff and plastic. It's as if he's forgotten their voice if you will. They're acting like they're the Jack and Laurie that we've read over many books, but they don't SOUND like the same Jack and Laurie.
All that and I'm still not quite sure why the book was called Intervention or why they chose a spread of medical instruments as the book's cover...lol...a minor issue to be sure, but one that sums up my thoughts on this book: it just doesn't seem to know what it wants to be and never really becomes any one particular thing over the course of all its pages.
I'm still a fan of Robin Cook as I find his medical mysteries well written and pretty exciting but this one was just a let down.
November 28, 2010
Intervention, my first (and possibly last!) Robin Cook novel, was dull, redundant and unoriginal. I didn't care for any of the characters - Shawn and Sana, in particular, were an irritating couple, and Shawn's casually sexist and demeaning treatment of his wife was gross. They seemed more like acquaintances who barely knew each other or colleagues forced to work together on a project than husband and wife who had known each other for several years. The dialogue was incredibly stiff and unnatural - it often read more like a formal journalistic interview than a natural conversation between characters. Cook hugely over-used the expositional technique of having one character ask another character a question in order to explain elements of the plot or background info, such as "well gee Shawn, how does that work? I'm pretending to ask this question purely out of my own interest, when really it's a see-through, lazy explanation for the reader" or "tell me more about that!". This question-and-answer dialogue was really poorly done, and used so frequently that the novel seemed almost like it was just 300 pages of exposition.
The chiropractic/alternative medicine story-line was somewhat interesting, but then it was randomly dropped entirely after 100 pages had been spent on it, so I don't know what happened there. The virgin mary storyline was tired and stale - alternate religious history has been done so many times before, and done much better. Worst of all was the laughable cop-out of an ending.
The chiropractic/alternative medicine story-line was somewhat interesting, but then it was randomly dropped entirely after 100 pages had been spent on it, so I don't know what happened there. The virgin mary storyline was tired and stale - alternate religious history has been done so many times before, and done much better. Worst of all was the laughable cop-out of an ending.
November 14, 2009
I've only read one Robin Cook book besides this one, but I was impressed by his ability to write a gripping thriller that combined the medical world as well, two ideas that sound great but, when mashed together, can end up bogged down with medical mumbo-jumbo and off-kilter pacing. Intervention is very loosely tied to the medical world, however, and I couldn't help feeling a Dan Brown influence throughout the entirety of the novel.
Intervention can be considered a quest story of sorts; this time, the quest item is not the Holy Grail but the ossuary that contains what the characters of the story believe are the bones of the Virgin Mary. Cook is definitely caught up on the religious spin in the novel, but he does tackle some other themes about the medical world as well. But this tendency to pin too many themes to one story is what generates the big problem for Intervention.
Cook's protagonist is Jack Stapleton, a recurring character from some of his older novels. Some of Jack's friends, Shawn and his wife Sana, have unearthed the ossuary of what appears to be the Virgin Mary, and, both being in two fields of study that will be directly affected by this find, proceed to uncover both the evidence to support the Virgin Mary claim and DNA that would uncover a matrilineal link to Mary in the contemporary world. But Jack's other friend, James, is an archbishop, a guy who would really suffer if word got out the Mary's bones had been found and that she had not divinely ascended into Heaven. So James and Shawn butt heads about the whole matter, and James sends a Virgin Mary fanatic into Shawn's house to influence him not to release his evidence. And somehow, Jack manages to find himself caught up in all of this, plus deal with his sick 4-month-old.
The plot sounds a bit confusing, and the references to Gnosticism and the Bible can be frustrating if one isn't up on their religious knowledge. But the plot is explained clearly enough, and often enough, to allow for the reader to get the gist of what's going on and why it's bad. Once one has been given the run-down of the Virgin Mary dilemma, the plot becomes quite intricate and interesting. It's the intervals in-between that make for a muddled read.
The first half of the book is fairly misleading. Jack begins to focus on his fieldwork about the dangers of alternative medicine, like chiropractic, which ultimately leads... no where. One can argue that towards the end of the novel, there's a frail tether between the religious aspect and faith healing, but to be honest, the two are barely connected. It feels like a waste to be given so much information on chiropractic, following Jack's informational trail and getting sucked into the topic, for it to just be dropped in the middle of the book for something more permanent. It feels as though Cook is trying to tap into some very pertinent themes, but there are just too many. They just can't be tackled all at once.
Unfortunately, the religious aspect of the plot becomes significantly less arousing after the ossuary has been dug up; the plot is reduced to a "thriller" where Shawn and Sana are wiped out by a religious fanatic with little to no emotional buildup and an even smaller emotional release from Jack. The characters are incredibly unbelievable; Jack is constantly leaving his sick baby and his taxed wife to go play a game of hoops, or skedaddling out of the house early in the morning to get in a couple more hours of work so that he doesn't have to be with the baby. Shawn and Sana bicker more than siblings, and that gets annoying all too quickly. James does not feel like an archbishop in the slightest. Their reactions are even more improbable. James and Jack are quick to get over their old friend's death; they are barely phased, moving on to more "pressing" matters! Jack blows up at people over the silliest of instances; twice he gets angry at people because they have had some sort of alternative medicine once in a while. This man needs some anger management counseling! The dialogue is off as well; everyone seems too nice, too sophisticated in speech. It seems these people don't use slang, or even contractions, when they talk.
A huge detractor is that the plot is wrapped up too quickly. Come on, I've read 350 pages of this book about the Virgin Mary; I do NOT want the conflict resolved by a quick house fire in two pages. The pacing, especially towards the end, is so inconsistent that the conclusion is probably one of the most disappointing features of the book. In the end, not much happens - everything is restored to order, a couple people died in the process, but so what? A baby is cured of cancer - maybe.
This is Robin Cook's 29th book. But it doesn't feel like he's learned a whole lot about the craft of writing in those other 28 novels. Why are the characters so unbelievable? What's with the dialogue? What happened to sticking to one point of view (Jack's)? There are just too many mistakes here to deny; the themes might be edgy, but the book can't sustain any intensity to give them any weight.
Intervention can be considered a quest story of sorts; this time, the quest item is not the Holy Grail but the ossuary that contains what the characters of the story believe are the bones of the Virgin Mary. Cook is definitely caught up on the religious spin in the novel, but he does tackle some other themes about the medical world as well. But this tendency to pin too many themes to one story is what generates the big problem for Intervention.
Cook's protagonist is Jack Stapleton, a recurring character from some of his older novels. Some of Jack's friends, Shawn and his wife Sana, have unearthed the ossuary of what appears to be the Virgin Mary, and, both being in two fields of study that will be directly affected by this find, proceed to uncover both the evidence to support the Virgin Mary claim and DNA that would uncover a matrilineal link to Mary in the contemporary world. But Jack's other friend, James, is an archbishop, a guy who would really suffer if word got out the Mary's bones had been found and that she had not divinely ascended into Heaven. So James and Shawn butt heads about the whole matter, and James sends a Virgin Mary fanatic into Shawn's house to influence him not to release his evidence. And somehow, Jack manages to find himself caught up in all of this, plus deal with his sick 4-month-old.
The plot sounds a bit confusing, and the references to Gnosticism and the Bible can be frustrating if one isn't up on their religious knowledge. But the plot is explained clearly enough, and often enough, to allow for the reader to get the gist of what's going on and why it's bad. Once one has been given the run-down of the Virgin Mary dilemma, the plot becomes quite intricate and interesting. It's the intervals in-between that make for a muddled read.
The first half of the book is fairly misleading. Jack begins to focus on his fieldwork about the dangers of alternative medicine, like chiropractic, which ultimately leads... no where. One can argue that towards the end of the novel, there's a frail tether between the religious aspect and faith healing, but to be honest, the two are barely connected. It feels like a waste to be given so much information on chiropractic, following Jack's informational trail and getting sucked into the topic, for it to just be dropped in the middle of the book for something more permanent. It feels as though Cook is trying to tap into some very pertinent themes, but there are just too many. They just can't be tackled all at once.
Unfortunately, the religious aspect of the plot becomes significantly less arousing after the ossuary has been dug up; the plot is reduced to a "thriller" where Shawn and Sana are wiped out by a religious fanatic with little to no emotional buildup and an even smaller emotional release from Jack. The characters are incredibly unbelievable; Jack is constantly leaving his sick baby and his taxed wife to go play a game of hoops, or skedaddling out of the house early in the morning to get in a couple more hours of work so that he doesn't have to be with the baby. Shawn and Sana bicker more than siblings, and that gets annoying all too quickly. James does not feel like an archbishop in the slightest. Their reactions are even more improbable. James and Jack are quick to get over their old friend's death; they are barely phased, moving on to more "pressing" matters! Jack blows up at people over the silliest of instances; twice he gets angry at people because they have had some sort of alternative medicine once in a while. This man needs some anger management counseling! The dialogue is off as well; everyone seems too nice, too sophisticated in speech. It seems these people don't use slang, or even contractions, when they talk.
A huge detractor is that the plot is wrapped up too quickly. Come on, I've read 350 pages of this book about the Virgin Mary; I do NOT want the conflict resolved by a quick house fire in two pages. The pacing, especially towards the end, is so inconsistent that the conclusion is probably one of the most disappointing features of the book. In the end, not much happens - everything is restored to order, a couple people died in the process, but so what? A baby is cured of cancer - maybe.
This is Robin Cook's 29th book. But it doesn't feel like he's learned a whole lot about the craft of writing in those other 28 novels. Why are the characters so unbelievable? What's with the dialogue? What happened to sticking to one point of view (Jack's)? There are just too many mistakes here to deny; the themes might be edgy, but the book can't sustain any intensity to give them any weight.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 18, 2013
Featuring the discovery of a potentially divisive religious artefact - an ossuary containing what are thought to be the bones of the Virgin Mary and the gospel of Simon the magician - this book raises some interesting questions about ancient beliefs versus scientific evidence. This theme is echoed in the sub-plot, in which the main character, Dr Jack Stapleton, weighs up the popularity of alternative medical treatments against their inherent dangers. While the story moves backwards and forwards between the religious and medical strands in the beginning, it comes together when Jack commits himself to following the scientific route in both cases, and so the action picks up. There follows an escalation of the drama with the introduction of a charming young monk with radical views on preserving the reputation and worship of the Mother of God, and the sequencing of the DNA found in one of the skeleton's teeth. I found the juxtaposition of the two themes fascinating, and the resolution even more so. While the book does not earn itself high ratings as a typical Robin Cook medical thriller, it does pay attention to the placebo effect that alternative medicine and religious truth claims tend to rely upon. I found this an interesting angle, and a satisfactory explanation of the title, "Intervention". Some interventions are helpful, others are harmful, and others are best avoided because of what they might stir up in terms of unwanted pain and anxiety.
November 2, 2023
Dan Brown spotyka Inspektorat Medycyny Sądowej.
Shawn Daughtry, archeolog, dokonuje w Egipcie przełomowego odkrycia. W jednym ze starych pism znajduje informacje, które mogą doprowadzić go do ukrytego w podziemiach Watykanu skarbu. Ujawienie jego zawartości może zagrozić fundamentalnym prawom religii chrześcijańskiej. O swoim odkryciu informuje dawnego kolegę ze studiów, obecnie arcybiskupa Nowego Jorku. Wstrząśnięty duchowny wzywa na pomoc trzeciego z ich studenckiej paczki, a jest nim (oczywiście) Jack Stapleton. Czy razem uda im się przekonać Shawna do zaniechania dalszych badań nad znaleziskiem?
Kod Leonarda da Vinci to to nie jest, niestety, za to inspirację widać gołym okiem. Najgorsze jest jednak zakończenie – albo autorowi padło na mózg (sorry Robin), albo nie wyłapałam gdzieś grubej metafory. Nie dość, że jest totalnie przerysowane (tak łatwo sobie znaleźć dane adresowe jakiejś tam baby ze wsi na drugim końcu świata?) to jeszcze zupełnie oderwane granatem od rzeczywistości. Ja wiem, że neuroblastoma może ulegać samoistnej inwolucji, ale nie każdy musi się aż tak orientować, więc sugerowanie jakiejś religijnej przyczyny jest dla mnie zupełnie niezrozumiałe, szczególnie kiedy autor jest lekarzem.
4/10
Shawn Daughtry, archeolog, dokonuje w Egipcie przełomowego odkrycia. W jednym ze starych pism znajduje informacje, które mogą doprowadzić go do ukrytego w podziemiach Watykanu skarbu. Ujawienie jego zawartości może zagrozić fundamentalnym prawom religii chrześcijańskiej. O swoim odkryciu informuje dawnego kolegę ze studiów, obecnie arcybiskupa Nowego Jorku. Wstrząśnięty duchowny wzywa na pomoc trzeciego z ich studenckiej paczki, a jest nim (oczywiście) Jack Stapleton. Czy razem uda im się przekonać Shawna do zaniechania dalszych badań nad znaleziskiem?
Kod Leonarda da Vinci to to nie jest, niestety, za to inspirację widać gołym okiem. Najgorsze jest jednak zakończenie – albo autorowi padło na mózg (sorry Robin), albo nie wyłapałam gdzieś grubej metafory. Nie dość, że jest totalnie przerysowane (tak łatwo sobie znaleźć dane adresowe jakiejś tam baby ze wsi na drugim końcu świata?) to jeszcze zupełnie oderwane granatem od rzeczywistości. Ja wiem, że neuroblastoma może ulegać samoistnej inwolucji, ale nie każdy musi się aż tak orientować, więc sugerowanie jakiejś religijnej przyczyny jest dla mnie zupełnie niezrozumiałe, szczególnie kiedy autor jest lekarzem.
4/10
September 29, 2009
Intervention starts out like a typical Robin Cook medical thriller, but never quite makes it there. The little medical thriller that is in the book quickly gets shoved aside in favor of Cook trying his hand at writing a Dan Brown type thriller. Cook's faux Brown plot line, which involves an ossuary supposedly containing the bones of the Virgin Mary, long buried beneath Saint Peter's and excavated in the middle of the night by a renegade and ambitious archeologist, is, like many of Robin Cook's plots, entertaining, if at bottom improbable and a bit silly. But that's OK. After all, the same could be said of The Da Vinci Code.
Intervention contains two minor plot lines, one about protagonist Jack Stapleton's crusade against alternative medicine, and the other about his newborn son's neuroblasoma, a life threatening disease. Stapleton, of late Cook's staple hero, is a medical examiner struggling to come to terms with his son's illness, for which medicine seems to offer no cure. At the same time, he autopsies a young woman who died as a result of an ill conceived and dangerous chiropractic intervention, cervical neck manipulation. Stapleton confronts the chiropractor, a wealthy Park Avenue practitioner with powerful friends and legions of devoted patients, and ends up getting sued by him. He also discovers that many of his friends and co-workers use alternative therapies, and drops his crusade. That's a shame because this plot line had the potential to be developed into a genuine medical thriller, but Cook lets it fizzle out. In the end, it's sort of like a twin that dies in utero and just shrivels up. Cook doesn't even bother to write about what happens with the lawsuit againt Stapleton.
Stapleton's struggle with his son's illness is another still-born plot line which just sort of fades away at the end, and isn't really resolved at all. Intervention is nearly 400 pages long. About 25 pages from the end, I realized that Cook couldn't possibly tie up all the loose ends and resolve all three plot lines successfully by the end. And indeed he doesn't. Stapleton ends up consulting what he believes to be a mystical faith healer in Jerusalam who he has come to believe is related to the Virgin Mary and Eve. He pays her to lay hands on his son, who shortly therafter takes an unexplained turn for the better and ends up cured. Spontaneous remission or miracle? That is left unresolved, part of Cook's sloppy and lazy ending.
Oh well, I never expect great literature from Robin Cook, but I do expect an entertaining, if somewhat improbable, medical thriller. All in all, Intervention fell short of the mark, and I kept wishing that Cook had ditched the main plot line and instead developed the ones he essentially aborted.
Intervention contains two minor plot lines, one about protagonist Jack Stapleton's crusade against alternative medicine, and the other about his newborn son's neuroblasoma, a life threatening disease. Stapleton, of late Cook's staple hero, is a medical examiner struggling to come to terms with his son's illness, for which medicine seems to offer no cure. At the same time, he autopsies a young woman who died as a result of an ill conceived and dangerous chiropractic intervention, cervical neck manipulation. Stapleton confronts the chiropractor, a wealthy Park Avenue practitioner with powerful friends and legions of devoted patients, and ends up getting sued by him. He also discovers that many of his friends and co-workers use alternative therapies, and drops his crusade. That's a shame because this plot line had the potential to be developed into a genuine medical thriller, but Cook lets it fizzle out. In the end, it's sort of like a twin that dies in utero and just shrivels up. Cook doesn't even bother to write about what happens with the lawsuit againt Stapleton.
Stapleton's struggle with his son's illness is another still-born plot line which just sort of fades away at the end, and isn't really resolved at all. Intervention is nearly 400 pages long. About 25 pages from the end, I realized that Cook couldn't possibly tie up all the loose ends and resolve all three plot lines successfully by the end. And indeed he doesn't. Stapleton ends up consulting what he believes to be a mystical faith healer in Jerusalam who he has come to believe is related to the Virgin Mary and Eve. He pays her to lay hands on his son, who shortly therafter takes an unexplained turn for the better and ends up cured. Spontaneous remission or miracle? That is left unresolved, part of Cook's sloppy and lazy ending.
Oh well, I never expect great literature from Robin Cook, but I do expect an entertaining, if somewhat improbable, medical thriller. All in all, Intervention fell short of the mark, and I kept wishing that Cook had ditched the main plot line and instead developed the ones he essentially aborted.
June 20, 2013
This book annoyed me! First of all, you can tell Robin Cook hates alternative medicine as much as OSC hates gay marriage because he took over Jack and used him to rant about that through half of the book. The other part of the book involves Shawn and his wife Sana and their marriage which is falling apart. Shawn discovers some fascinating scrolls and finds Mary's bones too easily. I don't think you can just go to St. Peter's and take an ossuary, after all. Then the pesky priest James comes along and tells Shawn, no, you cannot tell the world that these are the bones of Mary, Mother of Jesus even if it's super, mega interesting because the CHURCH won't like it.
I hate the Church.
To make matters worse he sics some ridiculous fanatic on Shawn and Sana and instead of running off with Sana which would be sensible and he'd get to have a normal, healthy relationship he blows up their house with the lot in there to keep them from revealing the identity of the bones!
And, Jack's son is sick too.
Urg. ANNOYING BOOK. Would the church really do such a thing?! Hide the fascinating truth? Popes are HUMAN therefore they are not INFALLIBLE!
I hate the Church.
To make matters worse he sics some ridiculous fanatic on Shawn and Sana and instead of running off with Sana which would be sensible and he'd get to have a normal, healthy relationship he blows up their house with the lot in there to keep them from revealing the identity of the bones!
And, Jack's son is sick too.
Urg. ANNOYING BOOK. Would the church really do such a thing?! Hide the fascinating truth? Popes are HUMAN therefore they are not INFALLIBLE!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 1, 2009
Don't "they" still tell writers to write what they know? Dr. Robin Cook is excellent at plaques and sudden death from toxic creatures. He is out of his element here. It could be a good story, or even a good movie, but it would need a serious rewrite. While I don't like his work, Dan Brown did it better.
Three roommates from Amherst College have done well: Archbishop of New York, Chief Medical Examiner for the City of New York and archaeologist as head of the department of Near Eastern Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Although they have almost no contact for over 30 years, Cook spins a strange tale of one man finding the bones of someone he believes is the Virgin Mary. The priest hopes not. The ME has to referee.
While the tale gets somewhat tiresome, it seems our author doesn't know where to take it when suddenly a mysterious stranger appears and ends it with a bang. The unlikely ending comes out of nowhere and left me wondering what happened. Did the editor call and say "Time's up!" ?
Three roommates from Amherst College have done well: Archbishop of New York, Chief Medical Examiner for the City of New York and archaeologist as head of the department of Near Eastern Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Although they have almost no contact for over 30 years, Cook spins a strange tale of one man finding the bones of someone he believes is the Virgin Mary. The priest hopes not. The ME has to referee.
While the tale gets somewhat tiresome, it seems our author doesn't know where to take it when suddenly a mysterious stranger appears and ends it with a bang. The unlikely ending comes out of nowhere and left me wondering what happened. Did the editor call and say "Time's up!" ?
February 6, 2017
I am a big fan of Robin Cook for his medical thrillers. This book was an exception. It was no thriller, had multiple plots that went nowhere and the climax was downright pathetic. By far my biggest disappointment among Robin Cook's books. What has come over Cook, really!
July 26, 2022
I have to keep reading this series to see if these books can somehow get even worse lol
February 2, 2023
It was such a good idea, ruined by the ending. Can I ask for a retelling by Dan Brown?
So, Jack and Laurie had a son, and he's sick. Laurie stays at home, caring for him 24/7, while the mainly Jack barely galces at the child. Because, you know, trauma. He doesn't anything around the house, he's sad because more often than not had to order food since the sick chiald is preventing his wife to cook him dinner and as soon as opportunity rises he's out of the house again. To celebrate with old friends, or to play basketball. Not once in the whole novel he interact with his son or help his wife with house chores.
All of a sudden two college mates call him to be part of a project and he jump at the opportunity to be stimulated by a 2000 years old mistery.
My problem with the book is that it seems badly patched up. We start with a crusade against alternative medicine and chiropractors, but it burns down fast. There are a few attempts to address the topic again while talking about JJ (their child) therapy, but it sounds forced. Than the subplot is dropped al together to focus on the science vs religion issue, which is interesting. And the mistery related to the Virgin Mary is good, is plausible, one wants to read the DNA report.
But there's no climax, no closure. Cook has bitten more than he could chew and decided to end it in flames. Maybe he didn't want to loose his more religious readers?
Anyway... he got rid of the science part in an auto-da-fé, admitting that the Chrch must hid information in order to survive and keep the status quo. But since Jack is a smartass he decided to take advantage of the info discovered by his dead friend's dead wife for his own gain.
Jack has never been a sensible carachter, but in this book he's clearly a bad person.
So, Jack and Laurie had a son, and he's sick. Laurie stays at home, caring for him 24/7, while the mainly Jack barely galces at the child. Because, you know, trauma. He doesn't anything around the house, he's sad because more often than not had to order food since the sick chiald is preventing his wife to cook him dinner and as soon as opportunity rises he's out of the house again. To celebrate with old friends, or to play basketball. Not once in the whole novel he interact with his son or help his wife with house chores.
All of a sudden two college mates call him to be part of a project and he jump at the opportunity to be stimulated by a 2000 years old mistery.
My problem with the book is that it seems badly patched up. We start with a crusade against alternative medicine and chiropractors, but it burns down fast. There are a few attempts to address the topic again while talking about JJ (their child) therapy, but it sounds forced. Than the subplot is dropped al together to focus on the science vs religion issue, which is interesting. And the mistery related to the Virgin Mary is good, is plausible, one wants to read the DNA report.
But there's no climax, no closure. Cook has bitten more than he could chew and decided to end it in flames. Maybe he didn't want to loose his more religious readers?
Anyway... he got rid of the science part in an auto-da-fé, admitting that the Chrch must hid information in order to survive and keep the status quo. But since Jack is a smartass he decided to take advantage of the info discovered by his dead friend's dead wife for his own gain.
Jack has never been a sensible carachter, but in this book he's clearly a bad person.
March 9, 2022
DNF at 22%.
Tuto audioknihu jsem získala zdarma. A ještěže tak. Nekonečné rozebírání choroby dítěte hlavních hrdinů. Kapitoly a kapitoly o Panně Marii. Připadala jsem si, jako bych přeskakovala mezi lékařskými skripty a vědeckým rozborem bible. Obojí sice může být zajímavé - ale ne, když má jít o thriller.
Moje první - a zároveň i poslední - kniha z této série. A možná i od Robina Cooka.
Tuto audioknihu jsem získala zdarma. A ještěže tak. Nekonečné rozebírání choroby dítěte hlavních hrdinů. Kapitoly a kapitoly o Panně Marii. Připadala jsem si, jako bych přeskakovala mezi lékařskými skripty a vědeckým rozborem bible. Obojí sice může být zajímavé - ale ne, když má jít o thriller.
Moje první - a zároveň i poslední - kniha z této série. A možná i od Robina Cooka.
September 10, 2017
Listened to on CD. Michael Crichton meets Dan Brown in this novel! Probably the best or 2nd best Cook novel I've listened to! It was nice not having the stand-by misadventures of 20 something medical students getting into trouble. Really enjoyed and highly recommend!
March 18, 2025
It has been more than two decades since I read nearly all of Robin Cook’s books to date. With Intervention, he’s obviously trying to pull a Dan Brown “The Da Vinci Code“, and not pulling it off at all. The stakes are not adequately laid out, there’s a sub plot with Jack that goes absolutely nowhere until the last couple pages, which is a total cheat, and Laurie is demoted to a simple housebound caregiver, and it’s frustrating. Cook is still a breeze to read, but there was just nothing to really grasp on to with this book.
April 14, 2024
Interesting deviation from his normal stuff, kind of one part Robin Cook and one part Da Vinci Code - enjoyed it!
July 19, 2016
Reading this book has left me virtually speechless. I didn't know what to say. It was so horrible.
This is the first book of Robin Cook that I've read which I totally did not like. Unlike the other Jack and Laurie series books, this one is not really a medical drama/thriller, or whatever the term is. It is actually dabbling on the religious with some medical undertones.
The first few chapters of the book seemed to be without any direction at all. There are lots of bits and pieces too difficult to sort out to put some order to. It seemed the writer will start to write something but halfway through would forget what he was writing about and then go on a tangent and totally forgot about the bit he started writing about and then finish with something else. A lot of the first few chapters, therefore, I deem irrelevant to the whole book. Irrelevant and totally irritating. There I was thinking that it was finally the whole mystery the book is all about, only to find out that it was just a bit written on the side with no relevance at all to the whole plot. True, the writer might have wanted to build up the story. But at least, it should be something relevant to build on. It seems a lot of bits and pieces were just written to comply with the number of words and pages the book should have.
There are also a lot of irritating characters and scenes. So irritating I ended up putting the book down and reading something else to ease up on my irritation. Jack is so irritating. Like for 10 years, he really has not grown up and developed into something else. Ten years into the story and Robin Cook has not even let Jack develop. He still has the same angst, the same depression, the same everything. Frankly, it is too much. It gets tiring after these many years that he has remained the same. Like the author has deliberately stunted his growth as a person. It gets old after a while, even if I do still love Jack. The author should also remember that most readers and followers of the Jack and Laurie series are also growing older as the years go by. And some won't appreciate that Jack seems to be left behind as the world goes older and wiser.
Both Shawn and Sana were also very irritating. At first, I was doubtful if they were the relevant characters of the story. There were too many bits and pieces while the author was building up their characters that I was too confused to recognize their importance in the story. And the author used very leading sentences to build up to some highlights and peak moments. However, sad to say, the author was not able to deliver. He would write some lines to make you think something momentous is going to happen. But sadly, I don't even recognize the momentous event when it was upon me. Or, did the author also forgot that he wrote something leading like that? Take the case of the night when Shawn and Sana went back to dig up the ossuary underneath the Basilica. I was so hyped up in the chapter leading to the actual dig and waiting for that momentous event that the author hinted at that would make Sana wish she has not agreed to accompany Shawn for the dig. But alas, the moment came and passed and it did not even rate a three on a scale of ten. Too much words but failed to make me empathize with Sana. Something definitely missing. Lack the words were lacking the heart, if you know what I mean. Failed to move me.
Frankly, I only finished the book to find out what the ending was. I was contemplating on reading the Epilogue portion just to finish it once and for all. But when the ending came, it was so unexpected and so disappointing. I expected something more momentous or more jaw-dropping from the author.
This book totally sucks.
This is the first book of Robin Cook that I've read which I totally did not like. Unlike the other Jack and Laurie series books, this one is not really a medical drama/thriller, or whatever the term is. It is actually dabbling on the religious with some medical undertones.
The first few chapters of the book seemed to be without any direction at all. There are lots of bits and pieces too difficult to sort out to put some order to. It seemed the writer will start to write something but halfway through would forget what he was writing about and then go on a tangent and totally forgot about the bit he started writing about and then finish with something else. A lot of the first few chapters, therefore, I deem irrelevant to the whole book. Irrelevant and totally irritating. There I was thinking that it was finally the whole mystery the book is all about, only to find out that it was just a bit written on the side with no relevance at all to the whole plot. True, the writer might have wanted to build up the story. But at least, it should be something relevant to build on. It seems a lot of bits and pieces were just written to comply with the number of words and pages the book should have.
There are also a lot of irritating characters and scenes. So irritating I ended up putting the book down and reading something else to ease up on my irritation. Jack is so irritating. Like for 10 years, he really has not grown up and developed into something else. Ten years into the story and Robin Cook has not even let Jack develop. He still has the same angst, the same depression, the same everything. Frankly, it is too much. It gets tiring after these many years that he has remained the same. Like the author has deliberately stunted his growth as a person. It gets old after a while, even if I do still love Jack. The author should also remember that most readers and followers of the Jack and Laurie series are also growing older as the years go by. And some won't appreciate that Jack seems to be left behind as the world goes older and wiser.
Both Shawn and Sana were also very irritating. At first, I was doubtful if they were the relevant characters of the story. There were too many bits and pieces while the author was building up their characters that I was too confused to recognize their importance in the story. And the author used very leading sentences to build up to some highlights and peak moments. However, sad to say, the author was not able to deliver. He would write some lines to make you think something momentous is going to happen. But sadly, I don't even recognize the momentous event when it was upon me. Or, did the author also forgot that he wrote something leading like that? Take the case of the night when Shawn and Sana went back to dig up the ossuary underneath the Basilica. I was so hyped up in the chapter leading to the actual dig and waiting for that momentous event that the author hinted at that would make Sana wish she has not agreed to accompany Shawn for the dig. But alas, the moment came and passed and it did not even rate a three on a scale of ten. Too much words but failed to make me empathize with Sana. Something definitely missing. Lack the words were lacking the heart, if you know what I mean. Failed to move me.
Frankly, I only finished the book to find out what the ending was. I was contemplating on reading the Epilogue portion just to finish it once and for all. But when the ending came, it was so unexpected and so disappointing. I expected something more momentous or more jaw-dropping from the author.
This book totally sucks.
August 21, 2011
As I started to read this book, it quickly reminded me his book Sphinx. They both started out in Egypt and also in the same little antiquities/souvenior shop. Only this book had a nephew as the owner as the previous owner (his uncle) was killed(which was in the Sphinx book). I was not sure if
I would sit and read this but, I gave it a shot hoping it would not be like the other book.
The story quickly moved from Egypt (where that was the only similarity) to Rome. Shawn and Sana find a codex that has a secret letter in it that tells where the bones of the Virgin Mary are buried. They dig up the ossuary with the bones and ship it back to NY. The ossuary was buried at st. Peter burial site but, noone had ever found it with all the excavation that had been going on.
The other part of the story starts with Dr. Jack Stapelton (who I have enjoyed reading in other stories) and Dr. Laurie Montgomery (also enjoyed in other stories), who have apparently gotton married and had a child. This child (approx 4 mo.) was born with cancer. They have told noone about what is wrong with the child.
Jack and Shawn went to college together with James who is the Archibishop. After James finds out that Shawn illegally shiped the ossuary back under James name to avoid being looked at, he enlist the help of Jack to stop Shawn from publishing a paper about the bones of the Virgin that he find along with the gospel of Simon that were in the ossuary. James feels this will destroy most people faith in the church knowing that her bones are still here on earth and did not descend into heaven.
The story mainly focuses on the ossuary and how it would destory the Catholic faith if the bones were indeed of the Virgin. Sprinkle in a few autopies that Jack does that are not really related to the story except while he was on a crusade for a bit on the horrors of mainly chiropratic. Jack throws himself into his work as he cannot handle being at home with his terminal child and wants to be away as much as possible so he will have an attachment/bond with his son.
The ending I have to admit is a bit far fetched. James has a plan to have a Virgin Mary fanatic, Luke, stay with Shawn and Sana to try to convince them not to publish their paper about their find. Luke kills himself and Shawn and Sana in order to save the church the knowledge that the Virgin's bones are still here on earth. James and Jack, along with the baby and Laurie, fly to Rome, rebury the ossuary where it was originally 'borrowed' from. Jack and Laurie then fly to Jerusalem to find a woman who is suppose to be a descendant of Eve/Mary per the DNA that was done on the bones(tooth) of the Virgin, and have this woman place her hands on the head of their child to miraculously cure him of his cancer. And that was the end of the story.
I would sit and read this but, I gave it a shot hoping it would not be like the other book.
The story quickly moved from Egypt (where that was the only similarity) to Rome. Shawn and Sana find a codex that has a secret letter in it that tells where the bones of the Virgin Mary are buried. They dig up the ossuary with the bones and ship it back to NY. The ossuary was buried at st. Peter burial site but, noone had ever found it with all the excavation that had been going on.
The other part of the story starts with Dr. Jack Stapelton (who I have enjoyed reading in other stories) and Dr. Laurie Montgomery (also enjoyed in other stories), who have apparently gotton married and had a child. This child (approx 4 mo.) was born with cancer. They have told noone about what is wrong with the child.
Jack and Shawn went to college together with James who is the Archibishop. After James finds out that Shawn illegally shiped the ossuary back under James name to avoid being looked at, he enlist the help of Jack to stop Shawn from publishing a paper about the bones of the Virgin that he find along with the gospel of Simon that were in the ossuary. James feels this will destroy most people faith in the church knowing that her bones are still here on earth and did not descend into heaven.
The story mainly focuses on the ossuary and how it would destory the Catholic faith if the bones were indeed of the Virgin. Sprinkle in a few autopies that Jack does that are not really related to the story except while he was on a crusade for a bit on the horrors of mainly chiropratic. Jack throws himself into his work as he cannot handle being at home with his terminal child and wants to be away as much as possible so he will have an attachment/bond with his son.
The ending I have to admit is a bit far fetched. James has a plan to have a Virgin Mary fanatic, Luke, stay with Shawn and Sana to try to convince them not to publish their paper about their find. Luke kills himself and Shawn and Sana in order to save the church the knowledge that the Virgin's bones are still here on earth. James and Jack, along with the baby and Laurie, fly to Rome, rebury the ossuary where it was originally 'borrowed' from. Jack and Laurie then fly to Jerusalem to find a woman who is suppose to be a descendant of Eve/Mary per the DNA that was done on the bones(tooth) of the Virgin, and have this woman place her hands on the head of their child to miraculously cure him of his cancer. And that was the end of the story.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 14, 2025
Not only did this book make me hate Jack as a selfish, cowardly jerk.. it made him look like a neurotic squirrel with ADHD. Not a flattering portrayal of a REAL man Cook!
March 10, 2016
Robin Cook was always a great standby. I could count on him to write an awesome read. I have not read all his books, nor have I read them in order, so I hope this was just one bad example, and not a trend. The man can write fabulously, so why didn't he? This book had NO MEDICAL MYSTERY to it. I actually skipped the alternating chapters in the front of the book and only read the ones applying to Jack Stapleton,and skimmed/skipped the ones about the archaeologists and their find. Jack was on a crusade against alternate medicine, which didn't even ring true for him. His character has always been the one to find things other pathologists missed. For someone of his knowledge, working in the ME's office, one would think he would understand that many people are killed by traditional medicine as well, it is just under-reported, if reported at all just like his claim about alternative medicine. The plot line, well, not the religious stuff, but using alternative medicine to cure his son, could have been used and made believable, Cook has/had the talent to do so, unfortunately he chose not to do so. This book was like reading a bad high school freshman essay, where the student can't stick to the topic at hand.
What is wrong with Patterson, and now apparently Cook?????
What is wrong with Patterson, and now apparently Cook?????
February 17, 2016
I started reading quite a few Robin Cook books last year and really enjoyed them, especially the series that included Dr. Jack Stapleton. Unfortunately, this book did not live up to my expectations and I only finished it to see if Cook was ever going to go back and finish the first part of the story. Early on, Jack has a case that implies a Chiropractor was negligent and caused the death of a young girl. Jack was on a crusade, visiting and confronting the Chiropractor, which ultimately led to a lawsuit against him and a terse meeting with his supervisor. Jack then went on to research Chiropractic medicine. Suddenly, the story turns a different direction, and new characters are introduced and Cook never goes back to the original story. In my opinion, all lose ends should be tied up in a novel, especially when the story starts out. That being said, I think Cook was on a witch hunt and wanted to throw his personal feelings out there about the Chiropractic industry and other alternative medicine. Needless to say, I was not happy with the religious overtones in the rest of the plot.
September 2, 2009
Pathetic! I'm a fan of Robin Cook but this was beyond the pale. The writing was ghastly and the plots absurd. I can't imagine what happened to the Dr. Cook I loved. Clearly he wanted to rant(using Jack) against alternative medicine and he did a stellar. if sophomoric, job. Sort of amusing that Jack kept running into intelligent, powerful people who use and love various kinds of alternative treatment.(Perhaps the book should have been titled "Vendetta"). Therefore, Jack decides he really can't win this one. Wow, the ability to quit before you start is how I like my heroes--or not. Cook's attempt at playing Dan Brown was just lame. Suspending disbelief even for a second was impossible. As for the plot line with Jack and Laurie's baby--what I learned about Jack was TMI. Come to think of it--the Jack I read about in this book is not someone I would want to know. Dr. Cook needs to take a long break from writing and then restart the series with Laurie alone.
October 23, 2009
Spoiler alert....I usually enjoy the science in Cook's books; this was awful. Two parallel stories - one a rant against alternative medicine, chiropractic in particular; the other an "archeological disproves Catholic doctrine" Dan-Brown-wanna-be tale. After leading us up to what could have been an interesting ending, what does he do? Blows up the archeologist and his wife in their home, steals the ossuary's contents, and has the archbishop and medical examiner "sneak" them back into St. Peter's tomb under the basilica in Rome, thus saving the archbishop, the Church itself, and the fans of Mary (Jesus' mother) significant grief. Throw in a bit of faith healing for the baby of the nonbeliever, and you're good to go. What a sappy way to end a book. It's as if he couldn't think of an ending.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 8, 2022
This was not a medical thriller which is what I expect from Robin Cook nor was it a Stapleton/Montgomery story as they hardly featured in the book. The main theme involved archeology, religion and ancient history, none of those subjects are of interest to me so I did a lot of skimming. The main characters were unlikeable and the ending was weak. A disappointing read.
November 14, 2010
It's the worst book by Robin Cook I read. Better stay away. It's stupid, it's antiscience and it looks like it was written by some other author.
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