BELLEVUE, Robin Cook
Synopsis
Twenty-four-year-old Michael “Mitt” Fuller starts his surgical residency with great anticipation at the nearly 300-year-old, iconic BELLEVUE HOSPITAL, following in the footsteps of four previous, celebrated Fuller generations. The pressure is on for this newly minted doctor, and to his advantage he’s always had a secret sixth sense, a sensitivity to the nonphysical which gradually plays a progressive role, especially as one patient after another assigned to his care begin to die from mysterious causes. At first he thinks it is just the ‘luck of the draw’, but as the numbers mount, he’s forced to think otherwise. As he struggles to find out why these people are dying while simultaneously having to deal with the unreasonable demands of being first-year resident, things rapidly spiral out of control.
Between fatigue, stress, and nerves, it’s no wonder that these first few days and nights of his surgical residency are tough ones. What is surprising, though, are the visions that begin to plague Mitt – visions of a little girl in a blood-stained dress, hearing bloodcurdling screams in the distance, and worse. As bodies mount and Mitt’s stress level rises, he finds himself drawn into the secrets of the abandoned Bellevue Psychopathic Hospital building, which to his astonishment still exists, defying demolition a few doors north of the modern Bellevue Hospital high-rise. Forcing an unauthorized entry into this storied but scary structure, Mitt discovers he’s more closely tied to the sins of the past than he ever thought possible.
Richard says
BELLEVUE is a enjoyable read, light, entertaining, and endlessly engaging.
Robin Cook, a retired ophthalmologist and surgeon, applies all his medical knowledge to all his writing. He writes medical thriller and has written more than 40 books, many of which have been on bestseller lists. Coma was his first and kicked off a long and successful career of writing medical thrillers.
BELLEVUE is a page turner that entertains more than captivates. It is written well with abundant sprinkling of medical terms throughout the pages make the read feel much more authentic than without it. The plot is a simple one about a young medical student who is just beginning his medical career at the oldest medical hospital in downtown Manhattan. He is interning at the old hospital where a number of his family had practiced medicine. However, his forefathers seemed notorious for doing things differently that regular medical practice, operating without anasthetics though they were commonly in use, doing lobotomies not just many patients but some very young ones who may have overcome their issues with age. Our hero soon learns that his forebearers may not have been the ‘good doctors’ his family believer they were. This sets the scene for what is coming in the following pages. The ghosts of mistreated patients begin to populate the pages and the story’s suspense and thrill get kicked up notches with each ghosts appearance.
Cook loves nudging readers toward his horror side every few pages, mostly by describing the hospital exterior and then developing the appearances of the ghosts.
Gloomy, forbidding, dark and ominous, a reader can just feel the enveloping suspense. But after a few chapters, Cook plateaus and the intended horror aspect flat lines as he tip toes around it. There are numerous signs that somthing horrible may occur. Cook always bursts the bubble before it happens.
Then as the last chapter unfolds, the climax is obiously imminent and clearly set. The reader knows it is about to happen but Cook pulls the plug and the reader will be surprised with the unexpected denoument. Spoiler alert, it isn’t as horrid as anticipated but it is surprising and for some readers it will be a sad ending.
A nice read that makes for an enjoyable passing of time. I would rate it as a 7/10.
