Beat the Reaper: A Novel by Josh Bazell
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Book Reviews of Beat the Reaper: A Novel
Book Review: Josh Bazell's debut medical/mob thriller
Summary: 5 Stars
BEAT THE REAPER is Josh Bazell's debut medical/mob thriller. His anti-hero calls himself Dr. Peter Brown in his present incarnation. He is an intern at one of New York City's worst hospitals, Manhattan Christian. As he narrates the story, he moves back and forth in time using his backstory, which puts his present life in context. One early morning on his rounds, he is assigned a new patient, Nicholas LoBrutto, aka Eddy Squillante, a mobster.
As soon he lays eyes on Dr. Brown, he recognizes him and screams that "Bearclaw" is there to kill him. Obviously the intern has some kind of mob connections and until now has done a good job of hiding them. Squillante knows he has three months to live and tells Brown he will blow his cover if he doesn't save his life. The story is shaped with the past and present colliding and leaves readers eager to understand who Brown is, how he got to be an intern at Manhattan Christian and what his legal status is. Witness Protection Program? Or hiding out on his own?
After his parents died, Brown was brought up by his grandparents, who treated him well and gave him a good life. But tragedy struck when he was in his teens, and he came home to find them brutally murdered. Who on earth would want to kill this elderly couple who never had any trouble with anyone? Now an orphan, the family of a schoolmate takes the youth into their home and makes him part of their lives. At first it seems that he is being given princely treatment with no strings attached. But one day, the friend's father has a "talk" with him and explains the debt he owes and will continue to owe for a long time.
His life changes dramatically, and he gains the reputation of a foot soldier who is nicknamed "Bearclaw." His name at that time is Pietro Brnwna, a mob hit man who looks at violence as he would later look at an X-ray. Any job he is asked to do he does with relish and no afterthoughts. By the end of the book, at least a dozen bodies have been racked up.
Years pass, but unlike many Mafioso, Brown is given permission to leave the "FAMILY" if he agrees to one more job. His "mentor" wants Pietro to make his son a killing machine, too. The agreement is reached and understood to be the initiation of the other young man into the mob. He has to "make his bones" and kill at least one person, then get away with it. The assignment goes into motion but takes strange and unexpected twists. Something is not right. These two men who knew each other from the time they were in school are having "a failure to communicate."
In the meantime, the narrative has segued from the past crime scenes to the present Dr. Peter Brown, miracle worker. Almost. He's very good and really enjoys medicine. But now that Squillante knows who he is, he is going to have to disappear again and become someone else. Does this mean that Josh Bazell will bring him back in another life as whatever the witness program allows him to morph into? Yes!
In an interview Bazell said, "Brown goes on to solve crimes that require both scientific understanding and physical toughness." And when asked about the footnotes sprinkled throughout the novel, he replied, "To try footnotes in a book with a fair amount of science in it seemed obvious." He admitted that some readers find them distracting, but if they choose to read them, he hopes they "will find them worth the time."
--- Reviewed by Barbara Lipkien Gershenbaum
Book Review: RICK "SHAQ" GOLDSTEIN SAYS: "WHEN YOU START OFF BY WATCHING A PIGEON FIGHT A RAT... YOU'RE ABOUT TO START A WILD RIDE!"
Summary: 5 Stars
When the very FIRST sentence... in the very FIRST book... written by a new author is: "SO I'M ON MY WAY TO WORK AND I STOP TO WATCH A PIGEON FIGHT A RAT IN THE SNOW, AND SOME F*HEAD TRIES TO MUG ME!... you know you could be in the right place... at the right time... to be part of a magical... riotous... unruly... maiden voyage... with an author... who... based on his wild concoction of multiple "fictional"... biographical... background... demographics... has created a protagonist... as unique as an individual snow flake. But in no way... can the central character... ever be described... as being as pure as the newly fallen snow. Born Pietro Brnwa... later known as "Bearclaw" Brnwa... and still later... once he enters the witness protection program... he's known as Peter Brown. And if you want to be really technical... even later... he's known as Dr. Peter Brown.
Pietro was raised by his Jewish Grandparents until they were murdered, and then the parent's of his best childhood friend... "Skinflick"... raised him. The fact that "Skinflick's" Father... David Locano... was a Mafia lawyer... greased the skids... that lead Pietro... into the life of a Mafia hit man. (It also... probably didn't hurt that Pietro's childhood role models were Batman and Charles Bronson in "DEATH WISH".) What is absolutely mesmerizing about this fast-paced story... is that it constantly shifts from the present time... where Pietro... aka... "Bearclaw"... aka... Peter Brown... is now Doctor Peter Brown... and the author who is a REAL-LIFE-INTERN at UCSF... spews out real life medical terms (with definitions... when he feels they're needed at the bottom of the book pages) coated with raucous "black-humor"... and then shifts... to Mafia "hit" flashbacks... with gruesome detail... all with tongue-placed-firmly-in-cheek... without missing a beat... on the medical side... or the Mafia murder mayhem side! If that isn't tantalizing enough... interspersed within these two realms... is a trip to Poland for revenge against Nazi loyalists... that turned his Grandparents in during the war... resulting in them being imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp. In a historically correct... and compelling... presentation... the author presents details about the death camps... with the same type of notes on the bottom of the page as he provides on medical terms. What a remarkable literary juggling act... balancing medicine... Mafia hits... and Holocaust history... all the while racing full speed ahead... with an action-packed... gripping... "dark-humor"... drenched... thriller. If all this isn't enough... we also have shark attacks... and the reader is left still wanting more! Thank goodness the author is already working on his second novel. Josh Bazell has hit a tape measure homerun on his first at bat!
Book Review: A truly exciting read
Summary: 5 Stars
Reviewed by Danielle Feliciano for Reader Views (2/09)
"Beat the Reaper" is one of the rare books that I would give more than 5 stars to if I were allowed. I took this book everywhere with me for two days, hoping to grab a few minutes to read. I did not go to sleep because I could not put it down. When the book was finished, I felt such a feeling of disappointment that it was over, that there were no more pages to be read and the story really was over. It has been a long time since a book had me so gripped within its pages that the outside world ceased to exist.
"Beat the Reaper" tells the story of medical intern Dr. Peter Brown. Dr. Brown narrates his own story, telling his present life as a doctor in the worst hospital in Manhattan, and at the same time weaves the story of his past as a mafia hit-man. Brown's voice in telling his story is wry and humorous, with no censure of what comes out of his mouth. Reading this book is like being at a party, listening to one of the most interesting people you have ever met share their life story. We learn how Peter was raised as "Pietro Brnwa" by his Polish Jew grandparents. After their murders when he was fourteen, Peter was taken in by his best friend's parents, the Locanos. Pietro quickly begins working toward exacting his revenge for the murder of his grandparents. That is the first step to him becoming one of the most feared, and most successful, hit-men the mafia has ever had.
After his lifestyle catches up with him, Pietro becomes "Peter Brown" and embarks on a life in medicine as an attempt to atone for his past. By narrating between past and present, Dr. Brown very carefully leads the reader into his world and takes the reader for a suspenseful, wild ride as he rushes to stay alive now that his cover is blown.
It takes true talent to make a mafia hit-man into a sympathetic character. It takes even more talent to tell the stories of hits and mafia lifestyle without letting that story stray so far into violence that it turns the reader off. There is violence here, but it is told as a matter of fact, never in a gratuitous manner. This story is in turns funny, violent, suspenseful and heartbreaking. I don't know who Josh Bazell is or where he came up with this story but I truly hope he has more waiting to come out. "Beat the Reaper" absolutely blew my mind and it will be a long time before it is forgotten.
Book Review: It doesn't get much better than this if you like morbidly funny twisted crime-fiction
Summary: 5 Stars
Beat the Reaper is right up my alley. I had a huge smile on my face the whole time I was reading this (which wasn't long because it's a short book and I had a hard time putting it down). This is a wildly entertaining, over-the-top thriller. The best way I can think of to describe it is to say its like the TV show House given an infusion of Goodfellas as imagined by the `Tarrinto-addicted' love-child of Carl Hiassen and Charlie Huston.
If this combination sounds good to you - you're in for a treat.
Of course, not everyone is going to like it. To help you decide if this book is for you, consider the following:
1. Are you offended by coarse language? If you are, give this one a pass. If, on the other hand, you enjoy novels peppered with f-bombs - Beat the Reaper has all the expletives you could ever ask for.
2. Do you like morbid and sarcastic humor? If so, you'll especially appreciate the cynical shots at the health care system.
3. How about graphic bone-busting violence? Beat the Reaper has that too, accompanied by hilarious anatomy lessons and trivia.
4. What about sexual content - graphic and crude? (This isn't actually something that I like much of in a novel - but there's a healthy dose of it here - notably a rather twisted (and unlikely) coupling in a shark tank).
5. Speaking of shark tanks - Good news for shark fans (and who isn't?). Beat the Reaper has them too.
6. But perhaps most importantly, do you like novels that are smart AND far-fetched? If you do, Beat the Reaper is a great example of a smart novel that is completely preposterous. Unlike novels that are unrealistic in a dumb way, Beat the Reaper is unrealistic in an intentional, entertaining, over-the-top way. (If you like unrealistic, dumb novels, you might want to check out Stuart Woods).
For those of us that crave brutally funny crime fiction, Beat the Reaper is a breath of fresh air. This is a fast paced, wildly entertaining, novel that will appeal to anyone who likes their crime fiction a little twisted. For those of us that like this type of novel: trust me, you won't be able to put Beat the Reaper down. It may not have much 'substance' but when it comes to pure entertainment value, it doesn't get much better than this.
Book Review: Beat the Reaper
Summary: 5 Stars
Dr. Peter Brown, ne Pietro Brnwa [pronounced "Browna"], has become a doctor thanks to the Witness Protection Program in which he was placed seven years before the story opens. [His nickname, "Bearclaw," has its own backstory, at which one could never even begin to guess.] The "Reaper" of the title is, of course, death, the moment of which is referred to as ReaperTime. Pietro bears rather unusual tattoos, at least in combination: a snake staff on one shoulder, a Star of David on the other.
The pivotal moment of Pietro's teenage years was when he found his grandparents, who had raised him, brutally murdered in their New Jersey home in an apparent robbery. The author goes into Pietro's grandparents' own teenage years as the tale has been told to him, as survivors of the Holocaust and the "last truly decent people on earth." He becomes best friends with a young man, nicknamed "Skinflick" [no attempt will here be made to explain that one either], whose father is a prominent man in the mafia, and in his junior year in high school Peter becomes a hit man at his behest. The novel juxtaposes scenes from this period in his life with current scenes, after Pietro becomes "Peter," completes a premed program at Bryn Mawr, receives his MD, and is now a pill-popping intern in Internal Medicine in a NY hospital. [In point of fact, the author is himself a CA medical resident.] When Peter is recognized by a new patient, who fears for his life not by virtue of his quite serious physical condition but from what he fears will be Peter's reaction to being recognized as a mafia killer, and threatens to expose his present whereabouts to the mob, Peter must try to keep him alive despite his survival instincts, much less his proclivities.
"Beat the Reaper" is an action-packed novel, with sporadic scenes of casual and startling violence. And beneath the banter there's a lot of serious stuff going on, some of which stayed with this reader, including things as diverse as aspects of the Holocaust and hospital procedures one never hears about, and which I fervently hoped derived from the author's obviously fertile imagination. It is a fast, very funny, and nerve-tingling read, and is highly recommended. [The author's website is www.beatthereaper.com.]