Reviews
BEAT THE REAPER is a blast. Josh Bazell blew me away with this story that is as relentless as a bullet., 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., It's an ingenious premise for a thriller, and Bazell pulls it off....BEAT THE REAPER only gets better, turn by turn, page by page. Savvy and savagely diverting, it's a Tarantino movie made with Scorsese looking over his shoulder., Fiction reviewers live for openers like this...[a] breakneck cross between a hospital drama, The Godfather and a Quentin Tarantino film....Moxie must be Bazell's middle name. Asking us to sympathize with a hardened doctor is tough enough. Getting us to identify with a contract killer who packed .45 automatics with silencers is a coup., Beware the risk of dependency....a hypochondriac's nightmare but a reader's dream.... 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., 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., Fiction reviewers live for openers like this...[a] breakneck cross between a hospital drama,The Godfatherand a Quentin Tarantino film....Moxie must be Bazell's middle name. Asking us to sympathize with a hardened doctor is tough enough. Getting us to identify with a contract killer who packed .45 automatics with silencers is a coup., 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., Josh Bazell is an unusually talented writer....[he] more than earned my indulgence as a reader. If there's a better recommendation for a story than that, I don't know what it is.
