Coma

Coma was Robin Cook's first commercially successful novel, published by Signet Book in 1977. Cook had previously written Year of the Intern (1973), which had received little attention. After that book failed to sell well, he studied the common features of bestsellers and concluded that, for an unknown writer, the mystery thriller offered the best chance of success. He was particularly influenced by Jaws, Seven Days in May and the novels of Eric Ambler. His first publisher was not enthusiastic about the new project, but Little Brown agreed to publish it with a $10,000 advance.

The protagonist is Susan Wheeler, a third-year medical student at Boston Memorial Hospital. Together with four other students, she makes rounds in operating rooms and intensive care units under the supervision of surgical resident Mark Bellows. Over the course of their three-month surgical rotation, the novel shows the inner workings of a hospital and the difficulties faced by a woman in a male-dominated profession. When two patients fall into unexpected comas after apparently successful operations, Susan begins to suspect that anesthesia complications are not the whole story. Her investigation uncovers a tampered oxygen line that causes carbon monoxide poisoning, as well as a network trafficking in the organs of patients in a vegetative state.

The book became a bestseller, reached sixth place on the New York Times fiction list and was named by that paper's book review as the year's number one thriller. Michael Crichton's 1978 film adaptation was also highly successful, and the story was later adapted again as a two-part television miniseries broadcast in 2012.