VIRAL. Robin Cook. Putnam; 2021.
Brian Murphy and his wife Emma are trying to build clientele for their new security firm, but the Covid pandemic is getting in the way. During a vacation with their little daughter, Juliette, Emma is bitten by a mosquito and develops EEE (eastern equine encephalitis) and winds up in the hospital, then is sent home. While trying to care for his wife and daughter, who also has strange symptoms, Murphy has to deal with a staggering emergency room bill and the insurance company's denial of coverage. He comes to the conclusion that both the head of the hospital and the head of the insurance firm are greedy heartless bastards who live like kings while patients are sued, their homes taken, and some even driven to suicide. Murphy and a woman who lost her husband devise a scheme to get even and to make sure the horrendous greed of the American health care system becomes a top story in the news.
Cook has written some good books and some bad ones, but Viral is just plain weird. The author is totally correct that our health care system is a mess, although it's bizarre that the book's protagonist would be surprised by any of this. Cook does reveal how hospitals jack up the prices to a ridiculous degree, and that not enough people bother to protest, and other things that may or may not be new to the reader. However, some developments are just contrived, and it's hard to believe that it would never occur to the hero to investigate Medicaid or bankruptcy protection. Instead his solution to the problem is criminal and immoral.
The book details Murphy's problems with billing department clerks, hospital administrations, and insurance companies who collect premiums but do little for their customers. All of this is somewhat interesting, but little of it is thrilling. The book finally turns into a suspense novel of sorts in the final pages, but even these events seem a bit improbable -- everything goes without a single hitch. It's as if Cook just wanted to get the damn book over -- the ending is almost laughably flat. In order to make his point, Cook overstates things, stacks the deck, and compiles it all in undistinguished prose, with barely- dimensional characters, and very stilted dialogue.
Verdict: Read the fine print in your health insurance, but this is not an especially good read. However, without any hesitation I recommend Cook's Cell, a thrilling and suspenseful look at what goes wrong when smartphones are used as primary care doctors. **.
