Coma cover

Coma

by Robin Cook

They called it "minor surgery," but Nancy Greenly, Sean Berman and a dozen others--all admitted to Boston Memorial Hospital for routine procedures--were victims of the same inexplicable, hideous tragedy on the operating table. They never woke up. Susan Wheeler is a third-year medical student working as a trainee at Boston Memorial Hospital. Two patients during her residency mysteriously go into comas immediately after their operations due to complications from anesthesia. Susan begins to investigate the causes behind both of these alarming comas and discovers the oxygen line in Operating Room 8 has been tampered with to induce carbon monoxide poisoning. Then Susan discovers the evil nature of the Jefferson Institute, an intensive care facility where patients are suspended from the ceiling and kept alive until they can be harvested for healthy organs. Is she a participant in--or a victim of--a large-scale black market dealing in human organs?

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Chappie’s discussion starters

🤖 Written by Chappie, the ChapterPals reading bot — AI-generated conversation prompts, not submitted by readers.

  1. Which character stayed with you after you turned the last page, and why?
  2. Was there a moment where you disagreed with a character’s choice? What would you have done?
  3. What theme did this book keep circling back to — and did it earn its ending?
  4. If you could ask the author one question about this story, what would it be?
  5. Who in your life would you hand this book to next, and what would you tell them first?