Former cancer researcher and medical school professor Geoffrey M. Cooper has found a second career as the author of Robin Cook-style thrillers. His latest, THE FIFTH STUDENT, is his sixth book to feature the duo of Brad Parker, a cancer researcher at the fictitious Maine Translational Research Institute, and his fiancée, FBI agent Karen Richmond.
THE FIFTH STUDENT opens with a bit of third-person narration: a college student settles down to an exam in a huge lecture hall. He begins by writing answers, not on his exam paper, but on a yellow Post-It note. He gives the note to the person on his right and receives a note from the person on his left. The note bears answers to different questions, which he copies onto his paper. And so on. The book then switches, a little jarringly, to first-person narration by Brad Parker. Parker is mentoring a promising young student named Penny who is accused of being one of the five participants in the aforementioned cheating episode. Penny insists she is innocent, and Parker thinks so highly of her that he goes with her to a meeting at Dean Hawthorne’s office, where the dean bullies Penny, makes sweeping generalizations, and replies “not our problem” to concerns about the effect of the accusations on Penny’s scholarship. As a former faculty member himself, Cooper has no doubt been involved in accusations of academic misconduct, which makes his characterization here all the more puzzling. Are academic administrators really so heartless? (Other characters are similarly one-dimensional.)
From there, the narrative heats up. Parker tries to get a look at Penny’s exam–a major Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) violation–thinking he can spot something to exonerate her, only to be told it was stolen out of the professor’s office. Coincidence? Bad luck? Parker doesn’t think so. With Karen’s help, he starts investigating. Things really get going when Sally, another student who can shed some light on the exam cheating, turns up dead. The narrative is hampered somewhat by the one-dimensionality of Cooper’s supporting characters, some of whom serve as plot devices and little more. Nevertheless, kudos to Cooper for building a mystery around the more-menacing-than-it-seems world of academe.
The sixth in a series of medical thrillers, Geoffrey M Cooper’s THE FIFTH STUDENT is an entertaining look at the sinister side of academic achievement.
~Anthony Aycock for IndieReader