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.
This is undoubtedly one of the most bizarre books I have ever read, a virtual bloodbath of murder and mayhem (complete with footnotes), as intern Doctor Peter Brown, comes face to face with the consequences of his criminal past. On his rounds one harried shift, Brown is shocked to see an equally flustered familiar face, the pre-op LoBrutto, known as Squillante, putting Brown's new life at risk with one phone call. It is in Brown's interest to make sure that Squillante keeps breathing after his surgery (yet another tragi-comic scene), but circumstances escalate beyond Brown's control, the ugly realities of a violent connection to the mob resurfacing in a final, gore-filled denouement.
Apparently Brown is on the road to redemption at Manhattan Catholic hospital, making restitution for the many deaths he delivered for "refined" mobster David Locano. Raised by loving grandparents who are killed in a home invasion robbery when the boy is fifteen, Pietro Brnwa sets out to deliver justice to the killers, but becomes enmeshed in Locane's family, nuclear and in the larger sense, seduced by their welcome and absolute acceptance. How a vulnerable young man becomes a mafia killing machine is explained by a panicking intern who sees the end of his dreams in that encounter with Squillante. A gruesome story unfolds, Pietro inured to the mindless carnage he leaves in his wake, unperturbed until the predator becomes the prey.
Bazell accomplishes this brilliant farce through the force of his acerbic dialog, an outrageous mix of murder, romance and black humor, a deeply-flawed justice system, a roiling shark's tank in New Jersey and the brutal pragmatism of hospital life, where Death stalks the surgical ward with careless disregard. Although Beat the Reaper is like watching a particularly gruesome slasher flick, this author grabs hold of his tale with relentless authority, unflinching in the face of daunting odds, as carnage past and present piles up around his feet. Not for the squeamish, Bazell never slackens the pace until its shocking conclusion. Luan Gaines/2008.
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.
This book is definitely worth checking out. It's fun, violent, medically informative, and action-packed. I know it's rather cliche, but this book is honestly very hard to put down. Once you start you'll want to keep going to the brutal end. Josh Bazell has been compared to Chuck Palahniuk. There are definitely aspects of Chuck Palahniuk in his writing. From the heavily detailed medical references to his anti-hero leading character. However his voice and perspective are definitely his own. He offers something new and exciting without coming across as a complete carbon copy of other progressive/alternative/whatever you want to call them/fiction authors. Hurry and read this one before it's turned into a mediocre Hollywood feature film.
