Miracle Cure

by Harlan Coben

Book Overview

A husband and wife race to find a cure for the disease that has inspired a serial killer to terrorize Manhattan in this classic medical thriller from #1 New York Times bestselling author Harlan Coben. They're one of the country's most telegenic couples: beloved TV journalist Sara Lowell and New York's hottest basketball star, Michael Silverman. Their family and social connections tie them to the highest echelons of the political, medical, and sports...

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 045123491X
• ISBN13: 9780451234919
• Release Date: September 2011
• Publisher: Dutton
• Length: 544 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 4.2" x 7.4"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

I can tell tis is an early book

The subject is so well featured in this book. The dialogue is a bit corny. I am just skipping along in my reading. I have read all of Harlan Coben's books. Facts are so true and sad. Carole Darland Keep on writing.

A great Cohen mystery and thriller.

The beginning was a little slow, but it became another great Coven book. The characters are all intriguing, and if you like a good mystery this is one.

Bit of a Miracle if you Can Find a Copy of Coben's Second Novel

Harlan Coben's first two novels Play Dead (1990) and Miracle Cure (1991) were published by a small publishing company called Judy Piatkus. Obviously this publisher wants a substantial amount of money now that Coben is one of the top and highest selling modern authors, to give up the rights to these two stories as we are yet to see these published by Coben's current or another mass market publisher. In a well if you want to play that game move, the publishers of Coben's other work don't even acknowledge these two books exist in the previous novels lists as the front of their books. This means the first miracle is you find out these two novels exist, and the second is that you can get yourself a copy. You should though, they are both very good novels. Miracle Cure isn't quite in the masterpiece league of his debut novel Play Dead or what he achieved with Tell No One and the other independent storyline (non Myron Bolitar) novels, but it is still a very good novel. Written when the paranoia of AIDS was at its height and before it crossed massively into the heterosexual community and many people saw it as a homosexual or drug addict disease, Coben through his characters argues adamantly that funds need to be allocated to find a cure for this disease. Unfortunately 19 years after this story was published we still haven't found a cure, but this book asks the question of what would happen if we had and a powerful bigoted element of society who did whatever it took to stop that cure being known. Like with Play Dead (and later the Bolitar novels) one of the main characters is a basketball star. What also makes this story brilliant is you've got to remember, this was first published in September 1991, two months before Magic Johnson announced in November of that year that he had AIDS, changed popular opinion on the disease and made the public acknowledge that people who sleep with women, can get AIDS too. What Coben portrays in this fiction novel in some aspects actually happened a few months later in real life. Basic plot of Miracle Cure - A research scientist knows his life is in danger after himself and his fellow scientific partner discovered they had potentially found a way to make those who are HIV positive, HIV negative. Unfortunately he meets up with a hit man who makes him write a suicide note before throwing him out a window 11 stories high. This is on the heels of a serial killer who is killing gay men, the media does not care but the remaining scientist knows these victims used to have AIDS and were two of those whose blood now showed as HIV negative. Luckily he has a family friend who he can confide in who happens to be a smoking hot and the upcoming next big thing TV journalist Sara Lowell who is equally passionate about his clinic keeping its funding and finding a cure. With religious preacher con artists, powerful politicians and family members against her, Sara will have to use all her journalistic skills to work out what is

A Thrill a Minute

Harlan Coben continues to prove that he is one of the best thriller writers around at the moment. A page turner is a much used phrase but in this case it is really appropriate. The author's books are always so well structured and his character's well rounded. He is obviously comfortable with his style and ability and this transmits itself to the reader making the reading of his books sheer pleasure from start to finish. Coben has now got a string of best selling crime novels behind him and all I can say is that I hope he continues to write for many years to come. The author lives in New Jersey with his wife and four children. This is one of the author's earlier books, in fact his second, but his ability as a writer is plain to see. He already has the fundamental rules of thriller writing, keep the action moving and fast-paced and this is a highly entertaining novel about serious issues. It is about a conspiracy designed to prevent the development of a cure for the disease AIDS. When one of a group of research scientists, on the brink of coming up with an AIDS antidote dies, initially it looks like suicide, but television journalist Sara Lowell and her husband, NBA star Michael Silverman, who are friends of the clinic's founder think it is anything but suicide . . .