Beat the Reaper: A Novel [Hardcover]

Josh Bazell (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 7, 2009

Dr. Peter Brown is an intern at Manhattan's worst hospital, with a talent for medicine, a shift from hell, and a past he'd prefer to keep hidden. Whether it's a blocked circumflex artery or a plan to land a massive malpractice suit, he knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men.

Pietro "Bearclaw" Brnwna is a hitman for the mob, with a genius for violence, a well-earned fear of sharks, and an overly close relationship with the Federal Witness Relocation Program. More likely to leave a trail of dead gangsters than a molecule of evidence, he's the last person you want to see in your hospital room.

Nicholas LoBrutto, aka Eddy Squillante, is Dr. Brown's new patient, with three months to live and a very strange idea: that Peter Brown and Pietro Brnwa might-just might-be the same person ...

Now, with the mob, the government, and death itself descending on the hospital, Peter has to buy time and do whatever it takes to keep his patients, himself, and his last shot at redemption alive. To get through the next eight hours-and somehow beat the reaper.

Spattered in adrenaline-fueled action and bone-saw-sharp dialogue, BEAT THE REAPER is a debut thriller so utterly original you won't be able to guess what happens next, and so shockingly entertaining you won't be able to put it down.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Making a hit man turned medical intern a sympathetic figure would be a tall order for most authors, but first-time novelist Bazell makes it look easy in this breezy and darkly comic suspense novel. The Locanos, a mob family, take in 14-year-old Pietro Brwna (pronounced Browna) after a couple of thugs gun down the grandparents who raised him in their New Jersey home. Bent on revenge, Pietro pursues the killers and executes them a year later. Impressed by Pietros performance, David Locano recruits Pietro as a hit man. After more traumas, Pietro tries to make a break from his past by entering the witness protection program. Now known as Peter Brown, he eventually lands a position as a doctor at a decrepit Manhattan hospital, where by chance a former Mafia associate turns up as a patient and threatens to rat him out. The hero's wry narrative voice, coupled with Bazells artful use of flashbacks to sustain tension and fill in Pietro's past, are a winning combination. (Jan.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Bookmarks Magazine

Beat the Reaper, a criminal and medical thriller, received praise across the board. Written in a tough pulp-fiction style, this debut, with "enough male fantasy packed into these pages to temporarily relieve the worst case of mid-life crisis," noted the Washington Post, won't fail to entertain. But despite its quirkiness and brutality, it contains surprisingly thoughtful scenes. Beat the Reaper also addresses real—and serious—issues that both doctors and hospitals face. A few critics commented on the ludicrous love scenes and disagreed over whether the footnotes added value, but all commented on the ending (imagine a locked medical freezer—we won't say more). But since this is the first novel in a planned series, we're pretty sure the adored protagonist survives.
Copyright 2009 Bookmarks Publishing LLC

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Little, Brown and Company; First Edition edition (January 7, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316032220
• ISBN-13: 978-0316032223
• Product Dimensions: 6.2 x 1 x 9.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (236 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #420,696 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Josh Bazell is a doctor and novelist. He has a BA in writing from Brown University and an MD from Columbia. He has worked as a screenwriter, and while in medical school investigated suspicious deaths for the Chief Medical Examiner of the City of New York. He is currently a resident at the University of California, San Francisco, and is writing his second novel.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

213 of 241 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars 13 Ways of Looking at "Beat the Reaper", January 3, 2009

By 

Dmitry Portnoy (Studio City, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Beat the Reaper: A Novel (Hardcover)

1. As if it were a TV show: It's "House" meets the "Sopranos."
2. In historical context: It's the best comic crime fiction debut since Robert Crais's "The Monkey's Raincoat."
3. Through a mourning veil for David Foster Wallace: Greatest footnotes since he died.
4. If you are one of those who only read nonfiction: It will teach you cool stuff about medicine, the Mafia and Auschwitz.
5. In case you like dramatic irony: The violence in it is clinical, the clinical sloppy and vile.
6. As if it were on Facebook: Its friends would be Jonathan Lethem's "Motherless in Brooklyn" and Richard Dooling's "Critical Care," but it would be the funny, outgoing one.
7. On a personal note: It is only the fourth book in my adult life I stayed awake to finish once starting it that night.
8. As if it had already been made into a movie: The book is better.
9. As a bar mitzvah present: Coolest ever.
10. As if flipping through its pages randomly: Did you notice fat men have diagonal creases in their nipples? Who does Michael Corleone imitate when he drops the gun after he shoots the cop? How about an exquisite description of the Hudson in midwinter? There's at least one of these on every page.
11. If you were to judge it by its cover: Don't. It's not Dean Koontz.
12. As an investment; Get the first edition.
13. As if it were the first of many: Please.

35 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars style is substance, January 5, 2009

By 

R Candlewood "Bob" (New Jersey) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Beat the Reaper: A Novel (Hardcover)

I love this book. It has tremendous energy right from the first page, and it doesn't let up pretty much the whole way through. It's fast and smart, and I never felt that the author was talking down to me -- he expected me to keep up, and nothing is throw-away, not even the funny footnotes (that are much more than footnotes in the end...). I'm not sure I'd recommend it for my wife, who likes her thrillers a little more civilized. The ending is over-the-top and not for the squeamish. Then again, it's so consistently outrageous and enjoyable that I want her to read it just so I can talk to her about it! It's that kind of book. I can't really think of anything I've read that's like it. Patsy Cornwell? This is way more fun. Tarantino, sure. And "House," maybe. But nothing on the page.

Still, I'd prefer to give it 4 1/2 out of 5 stars, because it isn't perfect; there are some spots that seem a little less polished, some things that are maybe too hard to follow. It's not always smooth. But those are quibbles, because overall, this is the coolest, smartest, most exciting book I've read in YEARS. It's a rush.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Laugh Filled, Attention Getting Thriller, May 18, 2010

By 

Beth Saboori (Santa Monica, California) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Beat the Reaper: A Novel (Paperback)

Dr. Peter Brown is an intern at Manhattan Catholic, what some would call the city's worst hospital. He's cynical, critical, comical and one tough guy. He's big, not so good looking (in his own words he looks like an Easter Island Sculpture of a longshoreman) and he used to be a mafia hit man. He went into witness protection, got a new identity and that explains why he's a half dozen years older than most of his contemporaries.

His hours are long, but drugs help, so does attitude. One day he has to tell someone about his cancer and it turns out to be Nicholas LoBrutto, aka Eddy Squillante, someone from his pre witness protection days. At first LoBrutto thinks Doc Brown has come to kill him, because the good doctor has an AKA as well, he's AKA Pietro Brnwa and he is also known as "Bearclaw."

It doesn't take long for LoBrutto to start the squeeze on Peter. Either Peter saves him or he turns him over to the mob. As long as LoBrutto lives, Peter is safe. And thus begins the zaniest thriller I've had under my eyes in just about as long as I can remember. This book has sex in all the wrong (and the right) places, bodies galore, blood too. Tough guy talk and doctor talk abound. Wit is here in all it's glory. If you don't laugh yourself to death reading this book you'll at least laugh yourself silly. You'll be wound up like a spinning toy top too and sadly or gladly, depending on your point of view, you'll still be dizzy with the spinning long after you've finished this story.