Sep 30, 2005 01:56 PM
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(Updated Sep 30, 2005 01:57 PM)
Robin Cook! This name ensures that there is no one else like him who can explore the fascinating possibilities and terror of modern science and medicine. You feel that all his novels can actually change to reality (just as anthrax)! There is enough substance and explanation to validate his stories. Robin Cook shot to international fame with Coma a medical thriller about organ transplantation. Cook recreates the same magic with the same subject in Chromosome 6.
The story is develops in two places…
In one place, Dr. Kevin Marshall, a molecular biologist and researcher, discovers a way to reduce the rejection rate to zero through genetic engineering. It is a process of extracting a chromosome from a human body and transferring it in apes, not in humans. That ape then gives birth to the genetic twin of the human resulting in an animal double called, Bonobo's whose organs are available for harvest. The process is illegal, immoral in the eyes of animal rights activists, and highly attractive to sick people with lots of money.
A very large bio-tech company with its main facilities in Equatorial Africa begins to recruit doctors who refer patients in need or organ transplants. The process is private, illegal, hush-hush, guarded, and also very dangerous. Some of the patients also include members of organized crime. The Bonobo's are kept segregated and are guarded on a small island off the coast of Boto, where the laboratory and hospital are located.
When Dr. Marshall sees smoke on the Bonobo island, he begins to suspect that some thing is wrong. He wonders if he might have overstepped his bounds and made a mistake bridging the evolutionary gap between man and ape. Together with one of the intensive care nurses and a laboratory technician, they set out to the heavily guarded island to observe the Bonobos. What they find not only scares them, but convinces them they must stop doing the transplants.
In the meanwhile, a notorious Mafia underworld leader, Franconi is murdered. His Mafia competitors are among the suspects. The suspicion increases when the body disappears from the morgue before autopsy is carried out. Medical examiner Jack and his colleague Dr Montgomery are puzzled by the case. Then arrives a mutilated and unidentifiable body that is found in the river.
The two doctors are disturbed by the appearance of the body---the head, hands and feet are missing. Then they discover that almost all of the liver is also missing from the body (if it can be thus called). Jack detects a liver transplant. DNA tests show that the liver is a perfect genetic match -- so how can it be a transplant?
Are the two incidents connected in any way? If yes, how? What does Jack find? What does Dr. Marshall and his companions find that scares them so much? Read on…
