I'd never read anything by Robin Cook, despite several of my friends pitching in with recommendations. I thought I'd start with Outbreak, thinking that it had something to do with the movie by the same name as the movie, especially since both deal with the outbreak of an Ebola related virus in America.  I'd read a book called 'The Hot Zone' by Richard Preston which was only based on facts related to an outbreak of Marburg virus in America.  Marburg and Ebola are deadly viruses, both with a very high percentage of fatalities and both have a lot of similarities, especially in the symptoms and effects. 

Cook's novel starts much like 'The Hot Zone', describing the first cases of infected individuals and then proceeds to introduce the protagonist of the novel, Dr. Marissa Blumenthal, an Epidemiology Intelligence Service Officer with the Centers for Disease Control, who's spent all of three and a half weeks in her job. She immediately starts seeing something amiss and starts suspecting a deliberate virus outbreak and before you know it, the five foot, one hundred pound Blumenthal turns super-detective, flying all over America, on her own money, trying to piece together facts and knifing attackers to near death in the process before spectacularly cracking the whole sordid saga wide open. Hoooah!  The novel is about as entertaining as a Hardy Boys mystery, but then, Hardy Boys mysteries are generally written for the pre-teen to just-teen crowd.  I expected to find intellectual meat and solid credibility, but then, maybe my expectations were too high, considering it was a Cook Book!
The bad guys are practically listed in Yellow Pages and still wonder how our super agent Blumenthal found them out. Yawn!
I sincerely hope Cook's other books are better, but then, after this experience, I'm not too sure what to expect.
I was having a conversation with about why I love Frederick Forsyth's books: they have a helluva lot of detail, are painstakingly researched and the protagonists and their actions very credible. I read a couple of Jack Reacher books by Lee Child and loved them too. I was much impressed by how the protagonist is clearly etched.  I mean, an SAS operative with years of experience can be silent as a ghost and an ex-military cop cuts a pretty convincing picture as a guy who can go deep undercover and stay under the radar.  What certainly does not gel is a member of CDC with three weeks of experience with viruses and a background in pediatrics who goes around knifing attackers and jumping cabs and switching motel rooms like a seasoned spy. Nope. And no, I can't be turn into a super spy if I can hum the Mission Impossible theme under my breath, either!

Title: Outbreak
Author: Robin Cook
Genre: Medical thriller

My Scores:
Background research: 6/10
Suspense: 2/10
Protagonist sketch: 2/10
Overall enjoyability: 4/10
Total score: 3.5/10