Mysterious drug overdoses, heinous Mob machinations, and one zealous protagonist ese are the ingredients in yet another Robin Cook thriller. Manhattan forensic pathologist Laurie Montgomery is Cook's crusading heroine this time out. Besides pondering why she's not married, worrying about her brother, and dealing with her usual unsavory daily tasks (autopsies, exhumation of bodies, etc.), Laurie has to fight city officials and police higher-ups who stand in the way of her uncovering what's behind the recent rash of cocaine deaths among the upwardly mobile. This is Cook at his best/worst: trite dialogue, paper-thin characterizations, and "pseudo" descriptions of medical procedures designed to validate the proceedings. But there's no reason why this won't be as popular in libraries as his other books.

An ironically revealing title for ophthalmologist Cook's fuzziest novel in years—an awesomely inept medical/crime thriller about a forensic pathologist up against the mob. As the story opens, the mind of one Duncan Andrews is racing like a runaway train,'' his lethargy havingevaporated like a drip of water falling onto a sizzling skillet.'' Hours and several more clichCs later, the Wall Street whiz kid'' is dead of a cocaine overdose and lying on the autopsy table of generic Cook heroine (young, spunky, pretty doc) Laurie Montgomery, an N.Y.C. medical examiner. Days and several more dead yuppies later, Laurie is convinced that someone is flooding the upscale market with bad cocaine. Of course, no one will listen to her—not her boss, who wants to chill this political hot potato; not silver-tongued, gold- plated ophthalmologist Jordan Scheffield, who's wooing her with limos and swank dinners; not cop Lou Soldano (a bit like Colombo''), to whom Laurie explains the exact difference between ophthalmologists, optometrists, and opticians and who wants to woo her with his sedan and spaghetti but can't match Jordan's glitz and anyway is busy worrying about the mob-related corpses stacking up next to the yuppies in Laurie's morgue. For meanwhile, in scenes stiff with clichC, two mobsters are blowing away a seemingly random group of citizens on orders from mob kingpin Paul Cerino, who, Laurie learns, is one of Jordan's patients—and who deals coke. Laurie sleuths; the mobsters lock her in a coffin; Laurie sobs; the mobsters let her out; Laurie remembers the flammable properties of ethylene, handily within reach, and blows up the mobsters. Finally, Laurie dumps Jordan for Lou, and she and the cop talk about the motives behind the whole ``horrid affair''—which owe more than a little to Coma. A slack and ragged retread, with Cook parodying himself in a tale that's about as stylish and suspenseful as an eye-chart. (Literary Guild Dual Selection for February)"