Many thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Group Putnam for gifting me a digital ARC of the latest medical thriller by a favorite, Robin Cook - 5 stars!

Dr. Ryan Sullivan is a pathology resident, assigned to the Medical Examiner's Office for a month-long rotation. However, he hates doing autopsies and does everything in his power to get out of them. Chief Medical Examiner, Dr, Laurie Montgomery, has Ryan assist her on a suicide case in hopes of getting him intrigued. It didn't work quite as planned - Ryan still abhors autopsies, but is now engrossed in a research project. There have been a string of suicides with red flags pointing to possible homicides, but not enough evidence to definitively classify them as such. But his research project may put all of them in danger.

This series featuring Laurie Montgomery and her husband, Dr Jack Stapleton, also an ME, have long been one of my favorites. I somehow missed the last few, so definitely have to go back and rectify that. These books can certainly be read as stand alones, but are much better with all the history between the characters. This topic was so intriguing and topical, and I also learned a lot about medical legal investigators. I can't wait for the next book in this series - always highly recommended if you love a medical thriller like I do!

NYC Chief Medical Examiner Laurie Montgomery insists that Dr. Ryan Sullivan—an underperforming senior pathology resident who is spending his required month at the medical examiner's office but who truly detests doing forensic autopsies—assist her on a suicide autopsy in hopes of stimulating his interest in the field. Desperate to avoid performing as many forensic autopsies as possible, Dr. Ryan Sullivan offers to participate in a research project on a series of suicides put together by one of the medical legal investigators. These suicides, like the case Ryan analyzes with Laurie, hint at some bothersome questions about their "manner of death." Although the project was more of a ruse than a serious study, Ryan surprises himself by immediately uncovering unexpected shared commonalities. Most astonishing of all, Ryan's inquiries eventually put both him and Laurie at risk by leading to a nefarious cancer diagnostics company that promotes the very latest, groundbreaking cancer screening technology in a shockingly self-serving and fraudulent fashion

This book started out a very slow burn, but once it picked up speed, it became really enjoyable. I did feel like the ending was rushed a bit, but the author managed to tie up all of the loose ends by the end of the book. I liked the suspense of Dr Sullivan investigating the staged suicides, as the body count continued to rise. This wasn't my favorite book, because of the slow start and the rushed ending, but it was still a great read, and I think anyone who enjoys medical thrillers or just suspense/mystery novels would enjoy it.

Thank you Net Galley for the advance copy of Robin Cook's latest release MANNER OF DEATH. I really enjoy medical mysteries and this one was no exception. I really like reading about Jack and Laurie and their life together. The novel centered around a medical student, unhappy with his current rotation at the medical examiner's office, using research into a number of deaths as an excuse to get of of doing autopsies. The storyline, murder disguised as suicide, was extremely interesting. While some of this was predictable, a lot was not. Since I read all of his books, I found the referrals to Jack's accident unnecessary to the story. Though Jack was mentioned throughout the book, Laurie was more involved, though the medical student, Dr. Ryan Sullivan, had the largest role in this book.

Have you ever read a book that just made you giddy with fear and heart stopping suspense? This book is it!! I have always loved this author and this book takes the cake!!

It's been a very long time since I read a book by this author. He must have just fell off my radar in the wilderness years when I didn't read much. But I saw this and thought it would be a good chance to reconnect and, despite it being a series book - and I didn't even know he had a series - I pretty much fell back in love with him as an author... Now I just wish I had time to go back and read all the books I missed out on... Maybe when I retire...
So... In this, their latest outing, Jack is slowly recovering from his injuries, now back at work but taking it slow. Laurie has a new resident, spending his required month at the MEs office. But Ryan is a very reluctant student and she is struggling with him. Until they come up against a suicide case which piques his interest as there seem to be subtle anomalies regarding the deceased's background and the manner of death. It appears that there have been several similar suicides that haven't, well, to put it bluntly, ticked all the boxes. And Ryan persuades Laurie to allow him to look into these as a pattern.
And so begins a perilous task for him as there is definitely something nefarious afoot...
Having devoured this book I obviously went back to have a peek at the previous books in the series. And I am not sure that I haven't read at lest the first few. Either way I have added them to my little black notebook which is now bulging with TBR books and will endeavour to try and play catchup.
It was also quite topical, the main theme of private healthcare, screening, and then expensive extras. Especially with the UK health service being what it is and many people taking this route instead. I personally have no experience of this in humans but I do know my vet can charge a fortune for this and that, that Smidge really should have! Hmmmm So I do believe in it all. And especially around cancer which I do know scares the pants off most people. But then this author has always written topical books that have also either scared or unnerved me. Ha also manages to get all the medical stuff over in a way that explains but does not baffle.
I do have a few niggle about the behaviour of some characters - being completely stupid and taking risks but I guess you get caught up in the big stuff and fail to see the small scary perilous stuff at times. Especially when you are supposed to trust the medical profession...
All in all, a book that has reignited the flame of my love for the author and medical thrillers. I'm off to play catchup. My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

MANNER OF DEATH - ROBIN COOK

4⭐

PLOT
Dr. Jack Stapleton and Dr. Laurie Montgomery are back. This time when Laurie insists that Dr Ryan Sullivan a pathology resident who is required to spend his month af the medical examiners office assist her on a suicide autopsy hoping his interests in the field of forensics are ignited but they are both drawn into a major conspiracy putting both their lives in danger.
It's the manner of death of the current and past cases which intrigues Ryan to dig further into the cases leading him to a cancer diagnostic company that promotes latest groundbreaking cancer screening technology albeit in a fraudulent fashion.

MY THOUGHTS -
Robin Cook is the king when we talk about medical thrillers. Being a doctor I am always intrigued esp in the grey world of medicine and it's allied fields. This is not the best work but still it was very entertaining.
I especially enjoyed the detective work which Ryan undertakes to uncover the secrets and the whole plot of insurance scams is very interesting to read.
I only wish if we had a bit more to the final resolution and how these so called suicides were done about in a bit more detail. ( Avoiding spoilers here)
Thank you publishers and netgalley for the arc in exchange for my honest opinion.

Few authors have been as successful at penning medical thrillers as Robin Cook. Since his first novel, “Coma,” was published almost a half-century ago, he has educated, thrilled, and sometimes terrified readers with tales of medical science run amok. His books don’t just inform readers about pressing hot topics; they are also tightly constructed suspense thrillers. Cook’s latest work, “Manner of Death,” taught me a lot about the inner workings of a major city medical examiner’s office and the crucial determinations those doctors make. But he also takes some frustrating plotting shortcuts that an author with his experience should avoid.

“Manner of Death” is the latest in a series featuring the wife-and-husband team of Laurie Montgomery and Jack Stapleton. Although I’ve read several other Cook novels, “Manner of Death” is the first I’ve read in this series. Laurie is now New York City’s Chief Medical Examiner, while Jack is one of the forty other examiners working for the Office. (Jack is only a minor character in this book.) Although Laurie’s job is primarily administrative, she insists on performing occasional autopsies. She is assisted in her latest case by Ryan Sullivan, a pathology resident who would rather do anything else than cut up dead bodies. Laurie notices that their current case, an apparent suicide, also presents some “red flags,” suggesting it might be a murder staged to look like a suicide. When she tells Ryan that there have been several similar cases in the city in the last few months, he volunteers to research them to see if they present any commonalities that might be significant.

What readers know since the first chapter of “Manner of Death” that Laurie and Ryan don’t know is that the deaths are indeed connected. The victims were all former patients who had been falsely diagnosed with cancer by Oncology Diagnostics, a firm operating a sophisticated insurance scam. When a patient threatened to report the false findings, the firm hired a black ops security agency to kill that patient and make the death appear to be a suicide. Because different medical examiners performed the autopsies, the deaths seemed unconnected until Ryan started investigating. Although he volunteered to look into the deaths as a way to avoid the autopsy room, he soon became interested and started putting things together.

Before I read “Manner of Death,” my concept of a medical examiner was someone like Ducky from “NCIS,” who works in a room by himself surrounded by bodies on slabs. I learned from the book that a big city office is a vast bureaucracy in which the Chief’s time is mainly spent on administrative matters like getting better facilities to work in. Besides a medical examiner, each case has a medical legal investigator who examines the premises where a body is discovered. Eventually, the examiner determines the cause of death, such as a gunshot, and the manner of death, whether suicide, accident, or homicide. This organizational structure leads to erroneous conclusions, like the blind men describing an elephant by feeling various parts of its body.

Although “Manner of Death” is a Montgomery-Stapleton novel, Ryan Sullivan is the main character and chief detective. After Laurie gives permission to follow up on the various cases, he interviews the different examiners and investigators and examines the case files. The killer, a former Navy SEAL, received extensive training in how to stage the murders, making Ryan’s task more difficult. Most of the book is a taut detective story, with Ryan putting the pieces together in a way that would make Harry Bosch proud. Along the way, readers learn a lot about the indicators of a genuine suicide. Some I already knew, such as pre-existing depression. Others were new to me, like the positioning of the gun and bullet wound when placed in a person’s mouth. Although the author repeats those points several times concerning each case, I never grew tired of them. I also enjoyed the occasional asides about New York City’s lifestyle and culture.

What I did tire of was the author’s insistence on making many of the book’s characters act extremely stupid to advance the plot. Every single medical examiner and investigator recognized the red flags in these cases, but they all signed off on them as suicides. Based on the author’s description of the case files and autopsy findings, these cases seemed to warrant additional investigation. Even worse, several characters take obviously ill-advised actions that put themselves in physical jeopardy. I don’t want to spoil anything, but the book would have been fifty pages shorter if they had acted more intelligently. Finally, the novel’s climax is a nail-biter that relies on a giant coincidence, which allows for a less-than-satisfying resolution.

I liked “Manner of Death” for the medical education I received, including a novel idea for an insurance scam. I also enjoyed following Ryan as he investigated the seemingly random cases to assemble a pattern. This was first-rate detective work described in a first-rate manner. But the author’s plotting contrivances were a major annoyance. These are the mistakes and shortcuts of a novice writer, not an author who has been penning this type of book for almost a half-century. “Manner of Death” is worth reading, but it’s nowhere near Robin Cook’s best work.

NOTE: The publisher graciously provided me with a copy of this book through NetGalley. However, the decision to review the book and the contents of this review are entirely my own.

This book is back set in the Medical Examiner’s office and shows more details on how this department operates. The chief medical examiner and her husband get sucked into another problem which makes for a very interesting how did it happen and who did it scenario. Can they figure it out before more people die? Read and find out.

Manner of Death by Robin Cook is a stand-alone mystery thriller. This is actually the 14th novel that features fan favorites, Laurie and Jack. Laurie Montgomery is the chief medical examiner in NYC; her husband Jack Stapleton is a pathologist, who is recovering from an attack by a serial killer (in previous book). Laurie decides to work with Ryan Sullivan, a pathologist, who is assigned to work for a month with the medical examiner team.

Ryan comes across as unlikeable, as he is not happy about doing autopsies, especially since his experience with suicides as a child, as well as trying to take his own life in the past. Laurie takes him under her wing, to help him see a different look at how things are done. When she explains about red flags on recent suicides, which are questionable, especially with 6 flags in a 6-month period. Are they truly suicides or homicide. Ryan requests Laurie to allow him to review these cases further, and she agrees to let him investigate.

Ryan will visit a number of medical legal investigators (MLI), asking questions regarding these suicides, and why they did not have enough information to look beyond a suicide. As Ryan gets deeper into the research, he finds that the deceases cases are linked to an oncology clinic, that gives early cancer testing results. Both Laurie and Jack have warned Ryan are only to investigate within the department, but he makes a decision visit the company to make them aware of his findings

What follows is a wild and intense situation that will put a number of lives in danger. When Ryan is found dead of an apparent suicide, Laurie steps up to find out why Ryan would kill himself. She ignores her own rules of keeping things inside the office, and puts herself very much in danger, in her looking at Ryan’s paper work.

Manner in Death was a suspenseful, engrossing, intense and fast paced story that kept me glued to my kindle. I could not put this down, as the last quarter of the book was so very exciting. Manner of Death is another wonderful thriller by Robin Cook, which was very well written. If you enjoy medical mystery-thrillers, I suggest you read Manner of Death.

This was a classic Robin Cook medical thriller. I do feel like there was a lot of similarities to a previous book, which they also reference in this book, but it was still enjoyable.

Robin Cook is one of my favorite authors, and I have read many of his books.

Manner of Death is the 14th story in the Laurie Montgomery series. Its not my favorite in the series, but I'm a fan, which keeps me reading.

In this installment Laurie has a student doing training in the medical examiners office who has uncovered a string of suicides that seem to be connected.

Throughout the course of the book an exciting mystery takes place while the source of these "apparent" suicides is investigated.

This review copy was provided by the publisher in exchange for a fair and honest review. Huge thanks to Netgalley and G.P. Putnam's Sons for my review copy!

This is the next installment in the Jack Stapleton & Laurie Montgomery series.

I like this series. It’s about 2 married medical examiners on New York. This was definitely a good plot. I was so involved into the storyline. There is no twists. You know who the killers are the whole entire time but it’s fun to watch the two ME’s try and figure it out.

The only problems with the book for me were there was so many characters and I was having a hard time keeping them all separated and the book doesn’t tell you about the character change at the beginning of the chapter.

Also something the book seemed so wordy and I would start skimming.

Genre: Crime Thriller
APK: Ebook
Pages: 346
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Series or Standalone: Jack Stapleton & Laurie Montgomery Series

Ryan Sullivan is a medical student resident specializing in pathology and doing a rotation in the medical examiner's office in NYC. Ryan absolutely abhors autopsies, especially the smell that permeates everything.

When he learns about similarities in some recent suicide cases, Ryan obtains permission to study the cases and determine if the manner of death is correct, as well as what commonalities exist between cases. While his initial ploy was to exempt him from performing forensic autopsies, Ryan soon uncovers some striking similarities that question the manner of death and threaten lives.

This is another installment with wife and husband team, Chief Medical Examiner Laurie Montgomery and Medical Examiner Jack Stapleton. If you’ve read any of the other stories, you know there's always danger, intrigue, twists and turns that keep you on the edge of your seat. While small parts of this were very scientific, Cook, as usual, does an excellent job explaining things in a way that's easy for the layperson to understand.

If you’re at all a fan of medical thrillers, this one will be right up your alley. I don’t remember the last time a thriller made me yell at characters, “No, don’t do that!” or made me wonder how such seemingly intelligent characters could act dumber than a box of rocks. This is the beauty of sharing with the reader something a character is unaware of and increases the tension and enjoyment exponentially. A compelling, fast-pace read that refuses to pull any punches, this one is sure to be your new favorite.

This was my first Robin Cook book as he is a doctor who writes medical thrillers. This is part of the Laurie Montgomery and Jack Stapleton series. They are forensic pathologists.

Ryan Sullivan is a resident in forensic pathology under Laurie’s supervision. While performing an autopsy, something begins to look fishy. More deaths appear to be suicides. Are these actual suicides or staged murders to appear like suicides?

There is plenty of medical information here, so pay closer attention!

Tense with a cat-and-mouse game, this is one suspenseful thriller. It’s my first Robin Cook and look forward to more. Thank you to G.P Putnam’s Sons, NetGalley and Robin Cook for an ARC. All opinions are my own.
Publication date December 5, 2023

3.5/5 stars

Thank you to Putnam Books and Net Galley for the advanced reader copy of Manner of Death.

I am a lifelong reader of all Robin Cook books and especially enjoy the Jack Stapleton/Laurie Montgomery series.

The last few books have been a little disappointing for me as I feel they lack detail that earlier Jack/Laurie books contain.

Manner of Death had a little more depth than the previous books, but there is still opportunity to return to the level of earlier novels. That said, I still enjoyed the story and love the characters and their interactions with each other.

Manner of Death by Robin Cook is a riveting medical mystery-thriller that took me on an absolute thrilling ride. It kept me on the edge of my seat the whole way. All of the events and twists truly had me on edge.
Sharp and well-written with an interesting premise this murder mystery is an exciting read.
Well crafted characters, wonderfully descriptive setting and a brilliant plot all contribute to a great book

I would like to thank NetGalley and G.P. Putnam's Sons for the opportunity to read this ahead of its publication date in return for my honest review.

This book is #14 in Cook's medical thriller series with married medical examiners Laurie Montgomery and Jack Stapleton. This did fine as a stand alone novel, for those who are new to the series.
Laurie is Chief Medical Examiner of New York City, and her husband, Jack is also a ME in the same office. The story centers around some questionable autopsies that have been completed in the last year or so. Some of the police officers and MEs involved had questioned whether the victims died from suicide or were murdered. Dr. Ryan Sullivan is competing a rotation at the ME office, much to his dismay. But, these questionable deaths pique his interest and energy. Sullivan's investigation leads him to the Park Avenue offices of Oncology Diagnostics. All of the questionable victims had interactions with this office, and Sullivan is hoping this is the lead that he needs.
I don't want to share much more, but this was a great book! I hadn't picked up a Robin Cook novel in a long time, and I'm very happy that I was able to read this one. I will be adding Cook to my TBR list again.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.

Great book! Started a little slow but I always enjoy the books in this series! A little predictable overall.

Thank you to #NetGalley, Penguin Group Putnam Publications and Robin Cook for the opportunity to read an advance copy of MANNER OF DEATH, to be published 5 December 2023. 5/5 Stars for this exciting novel portraying forensic pathologists in their natural setting. It was intriguing and a particularly fast read because I had to see how it developed. Detail oriented and medically specific, it was a pleasure to read about the inside workings of a major metropolitan Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. Anyone interested in forensics will love this fantastic read! #NetGalley. #PenguinGroupPutnamPublications #RobinCook #MannerofDeath

Robin Cook creates another engaging read. Not as tight as some of his earlier books, though enjoyable. The ending, moved to the Epilogue felt a bit foreshortened and there were some actions by the a characters that did not seem to follow what I would have expected their logic. They caused the story, at a couple of points, to be too predicable. I love Robin Cook for his use of forensics to give the story depth. This book was not as strong as previous ones, in that area. The core of the weakness was in not using the forensics to solve the "crimes", but depend on the confession in the Epilogue. Was not a fulfilling a finish to the story. Another chapter or two where the MEs and MLIs came closer to or actually solved the crimes would have left me more satisfied with the story. If there we half stars for the rating, I would have done a half less due to that weakness. Still a good and enjoyable read.