Godplayer (1983) is another combination of suspense, murder and medicine.

Cook is concerned that unpoliced doctors are making ethical decisions only God is qualified to make. The book has two primary social concerns. The first is the failure of "peer review" to weed out incompetence. In Godplayer, physicians investigate their colleagues' blunders with all the vigilance of a Nixon Administration investigation of the Nixon Administration. Cook also is concerned about "the impaired physician"; a doctor's access to psychoactive drugs combines maximum temptation with maximum opportunity, resulting in addicted physicians who practice their profession as badly as addicted athletes The protagonist is Dr. Cassandra Kingsley, perhaps Cook's most successful attempt at developing a rounded character. The omniscient narrator takes readers inside the head of a person with clear albeit conflicting motives, feelings and perceptions.

Through Cassie, Cook does a very creditable job of creating suspense using a classic...