Robin Cook’s new novel, ‘Pandemic,’ spotlights perils of gene-editing technology

When there’s a scientific breakthrough, best-selling author Robin Cook doesn’t just stand and cheer. He writes a novel about its possible perils.

In his latest medical thriller, “Pandemic,” Cook dramatizes the scary side of a miracle molecule called “CRISPR/Cas9,” which easily can be tailored to seek out and alter genes in humans and animals.

The story begins when a seemingly healthy young woman with a transplanted heart boards a subway in New York City but dies before reaching her destination.

Jack Stapleton, a medical examiner who appears in 10 of Cook’s previous novels, does the autopsy. He suspects an unknown, flu-like virus and feels duty-bound to identify and stop it before it can cause a pandemic killing millions.

Stapleton welcomes the challenge as a “diversion” from his many personal problems. His daughter has just been diagnosed with autism, and his mother-in-law is blaming his genealogy for it. His wife has unexpectedly been named chief medical examiner, making her his boss.

Stapleton learns that a hospital in New York performed the woman’s heart transplant at the request of a New Jersey hospital that also paid all of the woman’s medical bills.

Realizing “something weird is afoot,” Stapleton drives to the hospital to unravel the mystery.

And Cook, best known for “Coma,” takes readers far beyond mere entertainment and graphically shows what could happen if CRISPR/Cas9 were to fall into the wrong hands, ringing a warning bell about gene-editing technology.