Shock
Robin Cook, master of bestselling medical thrillers, answers the "What's  the worst thing that could happen?" question in this plot-twisting novel in  which villains with no sense of ethics or social responsibility get their greedy  hands on the newest cloning technology. It starts when a couple of Harvard  graduate students answer the Wingate Clinic's ad for egg donors. The women  figure on financing a year in Venice and the down payment on a Boston condo with  the extraordinary sum they're promised. But a year later, the heroines feel the  emotional need to seek out the children they've made possible for infertile  couples. So they disguise themselves and seek jobs at the clinic in order to  access the identifying information. The clinic, as it turns out, has plenty of  secrets to protect, so it's hard to believe that a pair of computer neophytes  could bypass its security. But they do, and the author is an adept enough writer  to finesse this detail.As in past books, Cook is much better at the technical details of medical  research than he is at characterization, but he definitely knows how to plot a  thriller. This one keeps you turning the pages until the final denouement,  though the last chapter ends abruptly, leaving the reader to wonder whether he  ran out of steam or is just setting up a sequel in which he'll recycle the  villains in a new scheme with a new pair of victims.--Jane Adams