WTF Book of the Month: Beat the Reaper

Apparently that oath to do no harm is more like a suggestion!

BY LAURA GIES

I'm a vampire junkie. I can admit it. I think I first got hooked on Christopher Pike's The Last Vampire series, and I've worked my way through both Buffy and Angel. I've read Anne Rice, Laurell K. Hamilton, Charlaine Harris, and a whole slew of minor unknown's. I suppose I'm more of a supernatural junkie, I love anything with werewolves, faeries, if it's not human, I'll give it a go. However, I also love reading, and I'm depleting the good supernatural authors (and several of the bad ones) faster than they can be printed, and my book shelf is all of a certain theme, so I've been attempting to broaden my horizons.

To this end, anytime anyone recommends a book, or I overhear a conversation about a book, or I see a book mentioned on a show or movie that is outside of my normal reading bubble, I request it from the library. I've had up to the maximum number of requests on more than one occasion (I think it's 27), and my record for books taken out from the library at one time is 15. That's this week. My librarian knows me by name and is getting back strain from all the books I'm making her carry, but she's a good sport. As you can imagine, this technique has lead me to read a much wider variety of books, and some of them are either so awesome or so awful as to blow my mind. Which brings me to the topic of my post, the "WTF Book of the Month." This will be my regular feature (I hope!) and trust me, there are plenty to choose from. I promise this will be the last post with a giant introduction!

This month's selection is Beat the Reaper by Josh Bazell.

Best WTF moment of the book: AN unarmed, naked Peter Brown (aka: Pietro "Bearclaw" Brwna), cuts open his own leg and removes his fibula to use as a knife against his attackers. From the mouth of the narrator, "so I shove my fingers through the membrane that runs between the fibula and the tibia, and grab hold oft he bone...And now I need to break it. Ideally without wrecking my ankle or knee (393, Large Print Ed., Little, Brown & Co., New York, NY., 2009)."

Pietro Brwna was living a relatively normal life with his grandparents in West Orange until he came home one day to find his grandparents murdered when he was 14. Pietro became obsessed with finding their killers, and learns that they were murdered so a couple of guys could "get made" in the mob. He befriends "Skinflick" Locano, the son of a made mob lawyer, and through his connections becomes a mob assassin, and kills the two men responsible. He only kills really bad guys, though.

Of course, all of that is back story. In the here and now, Pietro has entered the Witness Protection Program and is now Peter Brown (because the Program is very creative), an intern in the worst hospital ever. In this first person narrative, we follow along as Peter fends off a would-be mugger, disposes of a gun in the hospital, goes on his rounds, attempts to treat patients and self medicates, and that's before his day starts going downhill. On his rounds he is recognized by a patient from his old life, and has to do whatever he can to avoid the mob guys that come gunning for him.

Bazell, the author, moves seamlessly back and forth between time frames, as comfortable in Peter's memories of the past as he is in the present day. The reader picks up on Peter's exhaustion as he moves through his night shift, his frustration when the life he's been leading is forced back into his past. Despite the fact that he is a mob hitman, you feel sympathy for Peter and you want him to succeed, rooting for him the whole way.

Beat the Reaper is not my usual reading fare, but this fast-paced breakout novel for Josh Bazell has me chomping hoping he isn't a one-trick pony.

4 out of 5