Beat The Reaper [Paperback]

Publishers are given to attempts to whip up excitement about debut novels (it’s their job, after all), and often such fireworks splutter out all too quickly. But that’s not going to happen with Josh Bazell’s debut thriller Beat the Reaper, which is (it has to be said) quite as impressive as his publishers are trumpeting – in fact, if this book doesn’t take the crime and thriller world by storm, there's no justice. What marks the book out from the rest of an increasingly overcrowded field is its vibrant, glittering prose – streaked through with a mordant wit (highlighted by a series of pithy – and highly entertaining – footnotes; an unusual element in the thriller genre)

The plot is highly original. Peter Brown is a young Manhattan intern who is not all he seems to be. He has a past – and as any reader of crime novels knows – the past never stays buried for long. Peter has had an edgy run-in with a mugger and a more congenial elevator one-to-one with a female pharmaceutics rep. But his most significant encounter is to be with a new hospital patient, Nicholas LoBrutto – a man who knows the truth behind Peter’s artificially contrived façade: the young intern is, in fact, in the Witness Protection program, and he remains in the gunsights of some unpleasant New Jersey heavies. And things are about to get very hot for both Peter and LoBrutto. Josh Bazell, as Beat the Reaper, demonstrates, is the real deal, and the auguries for this debut are very good. If he can just sustain this level of invention and energy thoughout that difficult second novel… --Barry Forshaw

Hold on to your hats. Josh Bazell's first novel is a roller-coaster ride from the very first page, fast, furious, and - believe it or not - funny...A cross between ER and the Sopranos, this is House on speed, with a little Dexter thrown in and wisecracking dialogue to boot. It's breathtakingly accomplished for a debut. Bazell is a name to watch.' --Geoffrey Wansell, Daily Mail (23.1.09)

`Beat the Reaper is way cool and ice cold. A ferocious read.'

`Beat the Reaper is way cool and ice cold. A ferocious read.'

`Beat the Reaper is way cool and ice cold. A ferocious read.'

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.'

`Hold on to your hats. Josh Bazell's first novel is a roller-coaster ride from the very first page, fast, furious, and - believe it or not - funny ... A cross between ER and the Sopranos, this is House on speed, with a little Dexter thrown in and wisecracking dialogue to boot. It's breathtakingly accomplished for a debut. Bazell is a name to watch.'

A literate, dark and original thriller - Grey's Anatomy meets The Sopranos meets Grosse Pointe Blank.

`this cross between House and The Sopranos kept me squeamishly reading ... original and funny.'

`The novel speeds you like an emergency-room patient on a gurney through 300 pages of adrenalin-fuelled action, medical drama, mob dealings and stomach-turning violence ... A story told with humour and at a breakneck speed, interrupted only by Bazell's footnotes, which quickly become a vital part of the action.'

`Ferocious ... Cruelly funny and inventive ... The book is fuelled by flights of nihilistic wit and by an exuberant contempt for criminals, the law, rednecks, the US healthcare system, the British, anti-Semites and anyone else who happens to be in the way ... [Bazell] is clearly a writer, as very few in the field are.'

He's a doctor with a past...He's a hit man with a conscience...And he's got 24 hours to beat the reaper.

Meet Peter Brown, a young Manhattan hospital intern with an unusual past that is just about to catch up with him. His morning begins with the quick disarming of a would-be mugger, followed by the steamy elevator encounter with a young female pharmaceutical rep, topped off by a visit with a new patient - and from there Peter's day is going to get a whole lot worse and a whole lot weirder. Because that patient knows Peter from his other life, when he had a different name and a very different job. The only reason he's a doctor now is thanks to the Witness Protection Program - and even that can't protect him from the long reach of the New Jersey Mob. Now he's got to buy some time to do whatever it takes to keep his patient - and himself - alive.

Beat the Reaper is an intensely clever, imaginative novel that thrills on every page and is one of the most audacious and outrageous debuts of the year.

He's a doctor with a past...He's a hit man with a conscience...And he's got 24 hours to beat the reaper.

Meet Peter Brown, a young Manhattan emergency room doctor with an unusual past that is just about to catch up with him. His morning begins with the quick disarming of a would-be mugger, followed by the steamy elevator encounter with young female pharmaceutical rep, topped off by a visit with a new patient - and from there Peter's day is going to get a whole lot worse and a whole lot weirder. Because that patient knows Peter from his other life, when he had a different name and a very different job. The only reason he's a doctor now is thanks to the Witness Protection Program - and even that can't protect him from the long reach of the New Jersey Mob. Now he's got to buy some time to do whatever it takes to keep his patient - and himself - alive.

Beat the Reaper is not just the novel that will be compared to Quentin Tarantino's films, Grey's Anatomy, Don Winslow and Chuck Palahniuk, it's an intensely clever, imaginative novel that thrills on every page and will be one of the most audacious and outrageous debuts of the year.

Josh Bazell is a doctor and novelist. He has a BA in writing from Brown University, where he was awarded the Clarkson-Collins Prize in American Marine History, 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.