Margaret Cook was born in 1944 in South Africa to British parents, but grew up mainly in Somerset, England. She studied medicine at Edinburgh University in the sixties where she met fellow student Robin Cook, whom she married and with whom she had two sons. A happy and productive life as mother, wife and NHS consultant was demolished when Robin, now Foreign Secretary in the Blair government, announced publicly in 1997 that he was leaving her for his secretary. One of the transformations this traumatic event wrought in her life was the discovery of a love of writing; firstly when she wrote replies to the hundred or so comforting letters received from women in a similar situation. Then followed her first two books. She also wrote regular columns at various times in the Observer, Sunday Times, Scotsman, British Medical Journal News and Health Matters. She has contributed occasional pieces for the Guardian, Telegraph, Times, Daily Mail, New Statesman, Scotland on Sunday and other newspapers, writing social and political opinion and commentary, pieces on medical and science matters and book reviews. She also wrote agony columns for the Women's Journal and Marie Claire.She has taken part in television and radio debates on medical-political issues, was featured on the BBC radio programme "In the Psychiatrist's Chair," and in 2008 conducted a series of interviews on BBC radio entitled "Behind every Great Man"