Ĭook's novels combine medical fact with fantasy. Cook then decided he preferred writing over a career in medicine. It was followed by the Egyptology thriller Sphinx in 1979 and another medical thriller, Brain, in 1981. In March 1977, that novel's paperback rights sold for $800,000.

And I used every one of them in Coma.' He conceived the idea for Coma, about illegally creating a supply of transplant organs, in 1975. I came up with a list of techniques that I wrote down on index cards. He said, 'I studied how the reader was manipulated by the writer. The Year of the Intern was a failure, but Cook began to study bestsellers. He wrote his first novel, Year of the Intern, while serving on the Polaris submarine USS Kamehameha. Cook served in the Navy from 1969 to 1971, reaching the rank of lieutenant commander. Navy's SEALAB program when he was drafted in 1969. He later became an aquanaut (a submarine doc) with the U.S. Ĭook ran the Cousteau Society's blood-gas lab in the south of France. He graduated from Wesleyan University and Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, and finished his postgraduate medical training at Harvard. He moved to Leonia, New Jersey when he was eight, where he could first have the 'luxury' of having his own room. Early life and career Ĭook was born in Brooklyn, New York City, and grew up in Woodside, Queens. His books have sold nearly 400 million copies worldwide. Several of his books have also been featured in Reader's Digest.

Many of his books have been bestsellers on The New York Times Best Seller List. He is best known for combining medical writing with the thriller genre.

Robert Brian ' Robin' Cook (born May 4, 1940) is an American physician and novelist who writes about medicine and topics affecting public health. Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons (M.D., 1966)

Outbreak by Robin Cook