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(Hardcover)
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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.
Brown's darkly comic struggle to save Squillantenot just from the cancer, but from the ministrations of a quack surgeon named Friendlyis intercut with highlights from his previous career. This blend of criminal and medical drama works well, and the back-and-forth between timelines keeps things moving. Bazell has a knack for breathing new life into the most timeworn genre conventions.
More Reviews and RecommendationsJosh Bazell holds a BA in writing from Brown University and a MD from Columbia. He is currently a medical resident at the University of California, San Francisco, and is working on his second novel.
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November 11, 2009: I saw this book in the bookstore at the weekend with a blue cover, and again in yellow. My copy's red. Very odd. And it's a very odd book, besides being thoroughly entertaining, intriguing and absorbing.
The story's set in a Manhattan hospital, where a doctor tries to "beat the reaper" in the medical sense, whilst also trying to escape his own personal reaping. His past-well, you'd have to read the story. The tale is told in first person present tense, which works perfectly. It feels like listening to a very strange, possibly deranged, but superbly intelligent person telling his life, and it draws you in completely. I learned the oddest of medical facts from the footnotes, including why bone grafts come from the leg. And the story took me from the world of Polish Jews to the Italian Mafia, to murder, mayhem and hospital.There are scenes that are definitely not for the squeamish, told with a deft hand that lets this slightly squeamish reader safely off the hook-a very deft hand. And the whole is a curiously satisfying madcap adventure with just enough seriousness to haunt you when it's done. Highly recommended. Outrageous fun.Reader Rating:
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September 20, 2009: I thoroughly enjoyed "Beat the Reaper." Pietro's (or Dr. Peter Brown) character was intriguing and humorous and this book put a new spin on the traditional mafia story. Even though the main character had few, if any character flaws, the book was very different and a refreshing read. It reminded me of Chuck Palahnuik's books alot (author of Fight Club.)
I Also Recommend: Goodfellas, Fight Club.
Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers
Uma Thurman's miraculous resurrection in Pulp Fiction may have had the faint of heart squirming, but that was Disney material compared to what Bazell's misguided, misdirected, and misanthropic hero faces daily in this outrageous novel. Peter Brown (a.k.a. Bearclaw to a select few) is a doctor at a New York hospital. That his past can be described as shady is an understatement. That it may have included killing a couple of dozen people (albeit the dregs of society) is information known only to a few remaining goombahs and the federal witness protection program.
With an attitude honed by daily rounds and cantankerous charges, Dr. Brown has no idea what the next 24 hours hold. His day begins by doing serious damage to a would-be mugger, followed by an X-rated encounter in the hospital elevator with a sexy pharmaceutical rep. And his newest patient knows him from his old life. It's starting to look like even the feds can't protect him from his former pals in the New Jersey mob and an undesirable date with the grim reaper.
One part Tarantino, two parts Grey's Anatomy, with a soupcon of The Sopranos thrown in for good measure, Beat the Reaper is an exuberant tale that bobs and weaves while throwing some wild punches. Sardonic, witty, self-deprecating, and profane, Bazell's Dr. Brown is an unlikely hero whose misadventures make for a highly entertaining novel.
(Spring 2009 Selection)
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.
Brown's darkly comic struggle to save Squillantenot just from the cancer, but from the ministrations of a quack surgeon named Friendlyis intercut with highlights from his previous career. This blend of criminal and medical drama works well, and the back-and-forth between timelines keeps things moving. Bazell has a knack for breathing new life into the most timeworn genre conventions.
Beat the Reaper is a hypochondriac's nightmare but a reader's dream…After I gulped down the doctor's story, my pulse was racing so fast I didn't know whether to recommend his outrageous first novel or sue for malpractice…Bazell has sutured together Alan Alda's Capt. Hawkeye and James Gandolfini's Tony Soprano, and so long as he keeps everything operating fast enough, it's too much fun and too much gore to take your eyes off the page.
Crackling dialogue and rich characters distinguish Bazell's debut thriller. Dr. Peter Brown is living a double life and one of his patients may have uncovered the doctor's secret. Brown was formerly Pietro Brnwa, a vicious mob hit man who would be "the last person you want to see in your hospital room." Robert Petkoff delivers a solid performance as both Brown and Brnwa, distinct and well-crafted personalities whose flaws, needs and desires somehow coexist in this mystery. Bazell's writing is raw and endlessly witty, a combination that isn't always realistic, but with Petkoff behind the microphone it's a great ride. A Little, Brown hardcover (Reviews, Oct. 27). (Jan.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.In this debut thriller, an intern at a run-down Manhattan hospital who's atoning for his former life as a mob hit man encounters in the course of a single day a patient with a mystery illness, a 21-year-old girl about to have a leg amputated, and a former mob associate. His attempts to avoid the mob and see his patients are interspersed with an account of his past misadventures. Actor Robert Petkoff does an excellent job of voicing the protagonist as a cynical, street-wise young man who wants to do the right thing and remain alive. Highly recommended. [Audio clip available through
The past comes knocking for a physician with a fistful of secrets. Medical resident Bazell opens his debut novel with a bone-crunching interlude between Manhattan ER doctor Peter Brown and a mugger whom he beats senseless, then treats for injuries. Brown soon confesses that his real name is Pietro Brnwa. He's a former hit man whose lethal trade drove him into the witness-protection program, where he reinvented himself as a pill-popping trauma physician. "It's a weird curse, when you think about it," says the killer turned doc. "We're built for thought, and civilization, more than any other creature we've found. And all we really want to be is killers." The past catches up with Brown when a terminal patient at the hospital recognizes him as the mob assassin called "Bearclaw." The patient threatens to out Brown if he does not work to save the man's life. Bazell's profane, hyperactive novel is readable and fun, and no fan of shoot-'em-ups or medical dramas can afford to miss it. Among the book's highlights is a riotous set of doctor's rounds that find Brown making out with a cancer patient, chasing down a wheelchair-bound fugitive and suffering a particularly vile needle stick. A wildly funny mashup between genres that makes ER and St. Elsewhere look tame. Agent: Markus Hoffmann/Regal Literary
Fast, fun, furious, fierce... or better yet, stop reading the accolades for Beat the Reaper, open up to page one, and start reading. See you at the cash register. --Harlan Coben
Beat the Reaper is a blast. Josh Bazell blew me away with this story that is as relentless as a bullet.
--Michael Connelly
I didn’t want to like it. I mean, a doctor writing a novel is kind of obnoxious. What, you don’t have enough to do already? But maybe that’s me. Anyway, I didn’t want to like Beat the Reaper, but I did; I loved it. It is completely original, an utter page-turner, bold, shocking, hilarious, complex and even educational. It’s that book you wish you had with you when you were trapped in an airport for a three-hour flight delay. My only complaint is that I’ve already read it.
--Lisa Lutz, author of The Spellman Files
Beat the Reaper is terrific -- fresh, original, funny, and a dynamite read. Dr. Peter Brown -- aka Pietro Brnwa, aka 'the Bearclaw' -- is my new favorite character.
--Robert Crais
Beat the Reaper is way cool and ice-cold. A ferocious read.
--Don Winslow
Loading...1. And you can compare this to your lower leg, where the same setup is vestigial. The two bones of the lower leg, the tibia and fibula, are locked in place. The outer one, the fibula, doesn't even support weight. In fact you can take most of it out -- to use as a graft or whatever -- and as long as you don't fuck up the ankle or the knee, it won't affect the patient's ability to walk.
2. Doctors always know how old you are. We use it to tell whether you're lying to us. There are various formulas for it -- compare the creases of the neck to the veins on the backs of the hands and so on -- but they're not really necessary. If you met thirty people a day and asked them how old they were, you'd get good at it too. 3. The tattoo on my left shoulder -- winged staff, two snakes -- turns out to actually be the symbol of Hermes, and therefore of commerce. The symbol of Asclepius, and therefore of medicine, is a nonwinged staff with one snake. Who knew? 4. Scrub suits are reversible, with pockets on both sides, in case you need to run anesthesia or whatever but are too tired to put your pants on correctly. 5. "Stat" is short, though not very, for statim. "Calling a code" is what you do when you want to pretend you don't know someone's already dead. 6. In fact, the medical word for pubic hair, "escutcheon," means "shield," although in free-range humans only women's pubic hair is shield-shaped. Men's is naturally diamond-shaped, pointing up toward the navel as well as down toward the groin. Which is why women who shave their pubic hair into a diamond shape subconsciously skeeze you out. 7. This is an actual job, though it's not interesting enough to go into. 8. Think more money can't buy you worse healthcare? Forget the endless studies showing that the U.S. spends twice as much per capita as any other country, with results outside the top thirty-six. Take a look at Michael Jackson. Copyright © 2009 by Josh Bazell
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