Beat the Reaperby Josh Bazell
HC Published January 2009
PBK Published September 2009
You have to love a character that beats his early morning mugger senseless and then treats his injuries.
Bazell's debut thriller introduces Peter Brown a medical resident at a down and out Manhattan hospital. Peter starts the day armed with a pocketful of pills, for himself, and a gun he's lifted off of his would be mugger. He's ready to do his best to avoid his caseload of hopeless patients when he walks in on a mobster whose life expectancy has now become his own. Not good when the mobster isn't expected to return from the operating room. Peter's having a very bad day but he might just deserve it.
Gruesome, gritty and really gripping. If you can't take profanity and shut your eyes when a doctor comes at you with a needle don't read this book. Really, don't. But if you love sardonic humor, always turn your head to look at car crashes, and more often than not root for the bad guys then read it now. Warning this book will cause you to clamp your eyes shut at least once and grimace on numerous occasions but you'll keep on reading. Where's the next one?
From the Publisher-
"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 a steamy elevator encounter with a sexy young 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 they can't protect him from the long reach of the New Jersey mob. Now he's got to do whatever it takes to keep his patient alive so he can buy some time...and beat the reaper."
I really like this book, even though the profanity was a bit over done.
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