Thursday, August 20, 2009

Beat the Reaper -- Josh Bazell

The premise of this book sounds a tad hard to believe: Former hitman Pietro Brwna (aka The Bearclaw) is now Doctor Peter Brown. He has a backstory that's developed in the course of the novel, and it's a dilly. It's one of those that starts off 'way over the top, builds from there, and then takes a quantum leap higher. The current story is just as preposterous.

This book has pretty much everything. Sex? Check. Guns? Check. Sharks? Check. Sharks, guns, and sex together? Check. Humor? Check. Knives? Check. (And one special knife that, well, you'll just have to read the book.) Medical procedures? Check. Odd medical facts? Check. Footnotes? Check. And so on.

The pace is relentless, the writing is fun to read, the voice is engaging. I'll bet this one is already headed for a theater near you, but Hollywood will screw it up. Read the book. It'll be a lot more fun.

3 comments:

Todd Mason said...

Crocodilians?

wv: unglay

Unknown said...

Sadly, no. But wait till the next book. I'll bet he'll have some in that one.

Anonymous said...

See, I told you it was great.

Jeff