text: I don't know what to say about this book. It is the single worst book I have ever read in my young life.  I feel like I've witnessed a horrible tragedy and am at a loss for words to describe it.  I would say at some point in the book, maybe about halfway, every line of dialogue, every characterization, every plot point, is absolutely terrible.  This book is truly an offense to literacy, and I cannot understand how a publisher of any merit or author could publish and print this trash.  I can only imagine that Robin Cook either allowed a child to write this book,or was chronically drunk while writing it. Either that or he has lost his faculties altogether. I have read children's essays that have been better written.
  While it would take a novel to explain all the problems with this book, the highlights are:
  -knowing the mystery 50 pages into the book and being forced to painfully watch the dumb characters discover the mystery
  -cliche mania with lines like, "I going to get to the bottom of this mystery" and when the character's discover something, giving each other high-fives.
  -racist remarks about blacks living in harlem about how they like to steal televisions, own guns, and play basketball.
  -stereotype characters such as mafioso that like to eat spaghetti and named dominick and vinny.
  -incredible suspension of disbelief when the heros, nyc coroners, fly off to africa on a moments notice because they want to finish their case of a dead body. (also paying for their friends to come too)
  -wandering around the main installation easily where the evildoers are working, and asking questions, and getting answers to them real easy.
  -incredible annoying characters that make inappropriate jokes. (i.e. making sarcastic remarks to a guy holding a gun on them)
  -the book spirals into total madness in the last 50 pages to a beyond implausible ending. I got a sense whoever wrote the end of book was on sleeping pills when he wrote it.
  If anyone thinks this book is better than two stars, they need their head examined.
  