Spasm (A Jack Stapleton & Laurie Montgomery Novel, Band 15) - Hardcover

Cook, Robin

Hardcover

ISBN 13: 9798217044931

Verlag: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2025

Inhaltsangabe

From the "master of the medical thriller" (The New York Times), Robin Cook, fan favorites Jack and Laurie return in another fast-paced spine chiller about a deadly bioweapon that could disrupt the world order as we know it.

“Masterful . . . Robin Cook is at the top of his game.” –#1 NYT bestselling author FREIDA MCFADDEN

When Laurie Montgomery temporarily steps down from her position as Chief Medical Examiner, she and Jack find themselves uncharacteristically free for a couple of weeks. And the timing couldn't be better when they receive a call from Jack's former medical school classmate, Robert Neilson, who is the sole family practitioner in Essex Falls, an idyllic town tucked away in New York State's Adirondack Mountains. Serving also as the Hamilton County coroner, Dr. Neilson is in over his head trying to explain the sudden death of a young, healthy pest control worker on top of an outbreak of rapidly progressive Alzheimer's-like cases, and he pleads with Jack and Laurie to come lend a professional hand. Unable to resist a good mystery and a vacation in one, Laurie and Jack agree to help and head upstate.

Essex Falls is beautiful enough and their accommodations are even better than they imagined. But they soon learn the town has suffered a major economic and social setback, which has shaken its residents to their cores. When the body of the pest control worker disappears without a trace just prior to an autopsy, Jack's penchant for solving forensic conundrums launches him into a full-scale investigation that uncovers the most frightening modus operandi of his career so far.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Robin Cook, M.D., is the author of more than forty books and is credited with creating the medical-thriller genre with his groundbreaking and wildly successful 1977 novel, Coma. His most recent bestsellers include Manner of Death, Night Shift, Viral, Genesis, Pandemic, and Charlatans. Cook divides his time between Florida, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

CHAPTER 1

Monday, July 21, 8:15 a.m.

491 Edgewood Road

Essex Falls, Hamilton County, New York

Ethan Jameson's phone alarm had to sound for almost a full minute before the jangle was able to penetrate his sleeping brain. Until nearly 4:00 a.m. Monday morning he'd been totally involved in a major nighttime operation with his local and beloved militia group, the Diehard Patriots. Under the watchful eye of two of their four Russian advisors, the entire contingent of seventeen Essex Falls' members, dressed in full combat fatigues and with fully loaded AR-15 rifles and sidearms, had staged a full-scale mock assault on an empty home and barn. The supposed rationale was to rescue a captive local family being detained by an overzealous left-wing government. The entire complicated maneuver had been executed like clockwork. All seventeen Diehard Patriots had managed to go through multiple AR-15 magazines without so much as a single misfire, a testament to their progress handling weapons over the recent weeks.

Once conscious of the shrill, disagreeable clamor of the alarm, Ethan sat bolt upright, grabbed the offending phone off the night table, silenced it, and then, in a fit of transient rage, had to restrain himself from throwing the blasted thing against the far wall.

Still holding his phone, Ethan glanced across the bed, expecting to see the sleeping form of his girlfriend, Janet Huber, as it was her house and he was a relatively recent invitee. But the light cotton covers were turned back, and she was nowhere to be seen. Cocking his head to the side he was just able to hear the shower going, which reminded him that she'd planned on heading into her parents' convenience store early that morning. During the school year, Janet was a third-grade teacher, but during the summer months, she helped in the family store as she had from an early age.

Both Ethan and Janet had grown up in Essex Falls, Ethan a year ahead. Back then they'd had little to do with each other, mainly due to Ethan's reputation as an antisocial, carelessly groomed, unathletic "bad boy"-whereas Janet was the opposite: outgoing, traditionally attractive, blond, and popular. On top of that, Janet had been a good student, particularly compared to Ethan, who was more into hunting and fishing, online gaming, and dark web trolling than anything to do with academics or social interaction.

Nevertheless, when Janet returned to Essex Falls after obtaining a teaching degree at nearby Hamilton College, they reconnected. Ethan had never left Essex Falls, finding employment after high school with the American Pest Control Company as a technician servicing the local apple and dairy farms. To both Janet's and Ethan's surprise, they had clicked when they'd unexpectedly run into each other, and Janet-after a few weeks-had invited him to move into the cottage she'd rented just outside of town.

The stimulus for the abrupt change of heart as adults was the recognition that both of them, along with most of their friends, had shared an emotional trauma from the major economic and social upheaval that had befallen their isolated town when they were in the fourth and fifth grades, respectively. At that time the Bennet Shoe Company had closed with little warning. Although it had been common knowledge the business had long been struggling to compete with the avalanche of cheap, foreign-made footwear flooding the country, the town and the Bennets themselves had firmly believed their quality would prevail.

For nearly a century, the Bennet Shoe Company had been a rock-solid fixture in Essex Falls, with the Bennet family considered something akin to royalty. In many ways the company and the town were synonymous, as it employed-at any given time and over multiple generations-nearly three-quarters of the community's working-age population. Bennet Shoe had been founded by Ambrose Bennet in what was previously a one-horse town sited in the gorgeous wilds of New York State's Adirondack Mountains a year after the California gold rush, presumably with the help of some California gold. Its founding had required damming the Roaring Fork River to create a reservoir, both for waterpower to run the factory's sewing machines and as the domestic water source for what was to become a rapidly expanding population.

The creation of the company also necessitated the construction of what would become the largest multistoried, red-brick mill north of Albany, complete with an impressive clock tower modeled after the bell tower in Saint Mark's Square, Venice. As expected, the new industry spurred the town's explosive growth, including the formation of an impressive Main Street lined with two-story brick buildings with storefronts below and employee apartments above, as well as a large tract of single-family employee housing. Within ten years, Essex Falls had a population nearing five thousand, which matched the combined total of the entire rest of Hamilton County, the most sparsely populated but arguably most beautiful county in all of New York State, replete with densely forested mountains, crystal clear, unspoiled lakes, and wildly cascading rivers.

The social consequences of the precipitous loss of Essex Falls' largest employer were monumental, particularly because of the town's remoteness. A few families were lucky enough for their breadwinner to find a job twenty-six miles west at the Rubington Paper Mill in Eastham or twenty-eight miles north at the Schörgers Lumber Mill near Ducksbury. The rest of the laid-off workers went without or moved away, which is what most were forced to do. Those who stayed and couldn't find work suffered-mainly from alcohol abuse and one of its shameful effects: domestic violence.

This common legacy fueled Ethan and Janet's reconnection, as both their families had suffered hardships, albeit significantly different, with Ethan's faring much worse. Although initially happy because of their shared history, Janet was lately coming to fear two aphorisms: "Like father, like son" and "Leopards don't change their spots." Two weeks previously she'd been shocked and dismayed when Ethan had lost control and struck her during what was a rather insignificant disagreement, evoking disturbing memories of her father's behavior. Although Ethan had effusively apologized, the episode undermined Janet's confidence that their relationship would work. It did the same for Ethan's, making him aware he was living on borrowed time psychologically with such a strong woman unless he did something rather dramatic to reestablish his sense of masculinity. In truth the episode had surprised him almost as much as it had Janet, and although he promised her and himself he was going to control his fiery temperament, he wasn't entirely confident it would be possible. As a teenager he'd been in his share of fights, and even though he was 100 percent smarter now, he didn't know for certain how he'd react when pressed. Besides, deep down Ethan felt the entire country of America was on the wrong track in just about every way.

Shrugging his shoulders at the unknown, Ethan tossed his phone onto the night table, threw back the covers, swung his legs and feet over the side of the bed, and stood up. After peeling off his pajama top, he raised his arms skyward over his head and stretched to relieve the tightness of his shoulder muscles. Over the last year he'd gotten into bodybuilding as part of his dedication to the Diehard Patriots, whose interests had come to completely dominate his life. As a result he'd become noticeably more buff with bulging pecs and biceps and remarkably less belly fat-all of which he was able to appreciate at the moment in the mirror over Janet's bureau.

But his contentment was short-lived. As his sleepy mind cleared, he recalled with instant clarity and irritation exactly how angry he'd been when he'd gotten home in the...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: G.P. Putnam's Sons
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2025
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 13: 9798217044931
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 352
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: preigu GmbH & Co. KG; mail@preigu.de; ; Lengericher Landstr. 19; Osnabrück; Niedersachsen; 49078; Deutschland