|
|
Executive Times |
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
2005 Book Reviews |
||
|
|
Marker
by Robin Cook |
||
|
|
Rating: •• (Mildly Recommended) |
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
Click on
title or picture to buy from amazon.com |
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
Tedious Robin Cook’s new medical thriller, Marker,
reprises characters Laurie Montgomery and Jack Stapleton, medical examiners from
his 1999 novel Vector, and drags
them through over 500 pages of predictable exposition at a snail’s pace and
with his sharpest political preaching yet. For some readers, this is a
perfect book to haul to the beach: not much thinking and lots of page
turning. It’s easy to follow the plot, and there are few surprises, and
little suspense. Here’s an excerpt, from the middle of Chapter 3, pp. 34-41: Even after working at the
OCME for thirteen years, Laurie still savored the tingle of excitement she
felt as she entered what she considered to be the center of action. It
certainly wasn’t the visual experience, for in that regard, the tiled,
windowless room with its blue-white fluorescent lighting was cheerless. The
eight stainless-steel tables were dented and stained from countless
postmortems. Over each hung an antiquated spring-loaded scale. Along the walls
were exposed piping, dated X-ray view boxes, old-fashioned glass-fronted
cabinets containing an array of grisly instruments, and chipped soapstone
sinks. More than a half century ago, it had been a state-of-the-art facility
and the pride of the OCME, but now it suffered from lack of funds for both
modernization and appropriate upkeep. Yet the physical plant didn’t faze
Laurie. The setting didn’t even register in her mind. Her response was based
on knowing that she would see or learn something new every time she entered
the room. Of the eight tables,
three were occupied. One supported the corpse of Sean McGillin,
or so Laurie surmised, since Marvin was scurrying around it in his final
preparations. The other two, closest to where Laurie was standing, contained
bodies in the middle of their procedures. Directly in front of her lay a
large, dark-skinned man. Four people attired in moon suits identical to
Laurie’s were working over him. Although reflections off the curved plastic
full-face masks made identification difficult, Laurie recognized Calvin
Washington. His six-foot, seven-inch, two-hundred-fifty-pound
frame was hard to conceal. The other one she thought was Harold Bingham
because of his contrasting short, stocky stature. The last two had to be George
Fontworth and the mortuary tech, Sal D’Ambrosio, but because they were about the same size,
she couldn’t tell them apart. Laurie stepped over to
the foot of the table. Just in front of her was a drain emitting a rude
sucking sound. Water continuously ran down the
surface of the table beneath the corpse to carry away body fluids. “Fontworth,
where the hell did you learn to use a scalpel?” Bingham growled. It was now obvious which
one of the suited figures was George. He was on the patient’s right with his
hands somewhere down in the deceased’s retroperitoneal space, apparently
trying to trace the track of a bullet. Laurie couldn’t help but feel a stab
of sympathy for George. Whenever Bingham came into the autopsy room, he liked
to assume the professor role, but he invariably became impatient and
annoyed. Even though Laurie knew she could always learn from him, she
disliked the aggravation of working with him. It was too stressful. Sensing that the
atmosphere around table one was too charged to ask any questions, Laurie
moved down toward table two. There she had no trouble recognizing Jack, Lou,
and Vinnie. Immediately, she sensed the atmosphere
was the opposite, with some semi-suppressed laughter dying away as she
arrived. Laurie was not surprised. Jack was famous for his black humor. The
corpse was that of a thin, almost emaciated, middle-aged female with brittle,
bleachblond hair. Laurie assumed it was Sara
Cromwell. Of particular note was the handle of a kitchen knife protruding at
an acute, cephalad angle from the upper, outer,
anterior surface of her right thigh. Laurie wasn’t surprised to see the
utensil still in place. In such cases, medical examiners preferred that such
objects be left in situ. “I hope you are showing
reasonable respect for the dead,” Laurie gibed. “Never a dull moment,”
Lou responded. “And I don’t know why I
keep laughing at the same jokes,” Vinnie
complained. “Tell me, Doctor
Montgomery!” Jack said in an exaggerated professorial tone. “In your
professional opinion, would you guess this penetrating entry into the thigh
was a mortal wound?” Bending over slightly so
she could better access the point of entry, Laurie looked more closely at the
knife. It appeared to be a small kitchen paring knife, which she guessed had
a blade about four inches long, which had penetrated to the haft lateral to
the femur. More important, the entrance was inferior to the anterior iliac
spine but in line with it. “I’d have to say it was
not fatal,” Laurie responded. “Its location suggests the femoral vessels
surely would have been spared, so bleeding would have been minimal.” “And Dr. Montgomery, what
does the angle of entry of the weapon suggest?” “I’d have to say it’s a
rather unorthodox way for someone to stab their victim.” “There you go,
gentlemen,” Jack commented smugly. “We have confirmation of my assessment by
the eminent Dr. Montgomery.” “But there was blood all
over the place,” Lou whined. “Where the hell did it come from? There are no
other wounds.” “Ah-ha!” Jack said
switching to an exaggerated French accent, finger raised in the air. “I
believe we shall see in a few moments. Monsieur Amendola,
le couteau, s’il vous plait!” Despite the glare of the
overhead fluorescent lights off Vinnie’s face mask,
Laurie caught him rolling his eyes as he passed a scalpel into Jack’s waiting
hand. He and Jack had a curious relationship. Although it was based on mutual
respect, they pretended it was the opposite. Leaving the three to
their own devices, Laurie moved on. She felt a mild disappointment that Jack
could be so offhand and flippant. She couldn’t help but think it wasn’t a
particularly good sign, as if he didn’t care. Laurie made an effort to
put the problems with Jack out of her mind as she approached the next table.
Stretched out on its slightly angled surface was the body of a well-muscled
male in his mid-twenties, his head propped up on a wooden block. By reflex,
she immediately began the external exam. The individual appeared healthy.
His visible skin, although marble-white in death, was lesion-free. His hair was thick and
dark, and his eyes were closed as if in repose. The only visible anomalies
were a sutured incision with a retained drain on his lower right leg, the
capped-off end of an intravenous line running into his left arm, and an endotracheal tube protruding from his mouth, left over
from the resuscitation attempt. With Marvin still busy
putting labels on specimen jars, Laurie checked the body’s accession number
and name. Confident that she was dealing with Sean McGillin,
she continued the external exam, inspecting the IV site carefully. It looked
entirely normal, with no swelling or other evidence of extravasation
of blood or IV fluid. She looked more closely at the sutured wound on the
leg, the site of the operation on the fractured tibia and fibula. There was
no swelling or discoloration there, either suggesting that there was no
infection. The drain was sutured in place with a single loose loop of black
silk, and there was evidence of a minimal discharge of serous fluid. The leg
itself looked like the other leg, without any outward signs of venous
thrombosis or clotting. “I didn’t see anything of
note externally,” Marvin said when he returned with a handful of sterile
syringes and specimen jars, some containing preservatives and some without.
He placed them all on the edge of the table to have them immediately
available. “So far, I’d have to
agree,” Laurie responded. There was a lot of give-and-take between the techs
and the doctors, although it varied, depending on the personalities. Laurie
always encouraged comments and suggestions, especially from Marvin. As far
as she was concerned, the techs were a rich source of experience. Marvin went over to the
glass-fronted cabinets to get the required instruments. Despite the hum of
her ventilation fan, Laurie could hear whistling. He was always cheerful,
which was another thing she liked about him. After checking for signs
of intravenous drug use and not finding any, Laurie used a nasal speculum to
look inside Sean’s nose. There was no suggestion of cocaine use. With a
mysterious death, drugs had to be considered, despite what his parents had
said to the contrary. Next, she opened the eyelids to examine the eyes. They
appeared normal, with no hemorrhages on the sclera. Opening the mouth, she made
sure the endotracheal tube was in the trachea and
not the esophagus. Laurie had seen that on a few occasions with the
predictable disastrous results. With all his preparations
complete, Marvin came back to the side of the table opposite Laurie and stood
expectantly, waiting for the internal part of the autopsy to begin. “All right! Let’s do it!”
Laurie said, reaching out with her hand as Marvin
handed her a scalpel. Although Laurie had done
thousands of postmortems, each time she started another, it gave her a tingle
of excitement. Starting the actual autopsy was akin to opening a sacred book,
the mysteries of which she was about to discover. With her index finger
pressing down on the top of the scalpel, Laurie expertly made the usual
Y-shaped incision, starting from the points of the shoulders, meeting
mid-sternum, and then continuing down to the pubis. With Marvin’s help, she
quickly reflected skin and muscle before removing the breastbone with bone
cutters. “Looks like a broken
rib,” Marvin commented, pointing to a defect on the right side of the chest. “No hemorrhage, so it was
postmortem, probably from the resuscitation
attempt. Some people go overboard with the chest compressions.” “Ouch!” Marvin said
sympathetically. Expecting blood clots or other
emboli, Laurie was eager to examine the great veins leading to the heart,
the heart itself, and the pulmonary arteries, where fatal clots would usually
be found. But she resisted the temptation. She knew that it was best to
follow a normal protocol, lest something be forgotten. Carefully, she examined
all the internal organs in situ, then used the
syringes Marvin had laid out to take fluid samples for toxicological testing.
A fatal reaction to a drug, toxin, or even an anesthetic agent had to be considered.
Less than twenty-four hours had elapsed since the deceased had undergone
anesthesia. Laurie and Marvin worked
together in silence, making certain that each sample was put into the
correctly labeled specimen container. Once the fluid samples had been
obtained, she began to remove the internal organs. Diligently, she
maintained the normal sequence, and it wasn’t until a bit later that she
finally turned her attention to the heart. “Here comes the money!”
Marvin quipped. Laurie smiled. The heart
was indeed where she expected to find the pathology. With a few deft strokes,
the heart came out. She peered into the cut end of the vena cava, but there
was no clot. She was disappointed, since she had already noted that the
pulmonary arteries had been clear when she’d removed the lungs. Laurie weighed the heart,
then with a long bladed knife, began an internal
examination. To her chagrin, there was nothing amiss. There was no clot, and
even the coronary arteries appeared entirely normal. Laurie and Marvin’s eyes met across the
opened corpse. “Damn!” Marvin exhaled. “I’m surprised,” Laurie said. She took
a deep breath. “Well, you see to the gut and I’ll take my micro samples, then
we’ll check the brain.” “You got it,” Marvin said. He took the
stomach and the intestines over to the sink to wash them out. Laurie took multiple tissue samples for
microscopic study, particularly from the heart and the lungs. Marvin returned the cleaned gut to
Laurie, who went through it carefully, taking samples as she proceeded.
Meanwhile, Marvin started on the head by reflecting the scalp. By the time
Laurie was finished with the stomach and intestines, Marvin was ready for her
to inspect the skull. She gave him a thumbs-up when she was through, and he
hefted the power-vibrating saw to cut through the bone just above the ears. While Marvin was busy with the skull,
Laurie took a scissors and opened the sutured wound on the lower leg. All
looked fine within the surgical site. She then opened the long veins of the
legs, tracing them from the ankles all the way up into the abdomen. There
were no clots. “The brain looks normal to me,” Marvin
commented. Laurie nodded. There was no swelling
and no hemorrhage, and the color was normal. She felt it with her practiced
finger. It felt normal as well. A few minutes later, Laurie had the
brain out, and she dropped it into a pan that Marvin held. She checked the
cut ends of the carotid arteries. Like everything else, they were normal. She
weighed the brain. Its weight was within the normal limits. “We’re not finding
anything,” she said. “I’m sorry,” Marvin said. Laurie smiled. On top of
his other good qualities, he was empathetic. “You don’t need to apologize.
It’s not your fault.” “It would have been nice
to find something. What are you thinking now? It doesn’t look like he should
have died.” “I haven’t the slightest
idea. I’ll hope the microscopic can shed some light, but I’m not optimistic.
Everything looks and feels so normal. Why don’t you start winding things up
while I section the brain. I can’t think of anything
else to do.” “You got it,” Marvin said
cheerfully. As Laurie anticipated,
the interior of the brain looked like its exterior. She took the appropriate
samples, then joined Marvin to suture up the body.
With both of them working, it took only a few minutes. “I’d like to get my next
case up as soon as possible,” Laurie said. “I hope you don’t mind.” She was
afraid that once she sat down, her fatigue would return with a vengeance. At
the moment, she was feeling better than expected. “Not at all,” Marvin
said. He was already straightening up. “How long will the turnaround take?” Laurie
asked Marvin as he carried the specimen bottles away. “Not long at all.” Fans of prior Cook novels will likely
find Marker
an average Cook effort and will enjoy reading it. Many readers will find that
the novel carries hundreds of excess pages of dialogue and description that
an editor would have expunged were this a less bankable author. I found it
tedious, but I plodded my way through, thinking little in the warm weather
and letting the dialogue waft over me like a cooling breeze. Steve Hopkins,
August 25, 2005 |
||
|
|
|
||
|
Go to Executive Times
Archives |
|||
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
ã 2005 Hopkins and Company, LLC The recommendation rating for
this book appeared in the September
2005 issue of Executive Times URL for this review: http://www.hopkinsandcompany.com/Books/Marker.htm For Reprint Permission,
Contact: Hopkins & Company, LLC • E-mail: books@hopkinsandcompany.com |
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
||
