Beat the Reaper: Josh Bazell

To begin, a confession. Actually, two.

One, despite how very little I am reading right now, I am still horribly behind in updates. I don't have a bad or good excuse for this. But it bothers me to no end.

Second, the first time I saw this cover, I misread it as "The Beat Reaper" and was instantly fascinated by such an odd title. To the book's credit, the fascination didn't lessen once I read it correctly.

It took me weeks to get my hands on this one, it seemed everyone on BookMooch wanted it as bad as I did, and every time it became available, someone had beaten me to it (no pun intended).

When it finally did arrive (thanks, Amy!), I set it aside to read on spring break. And then on the Thursday night before the last day of class I peaked at it and proceeded to read it in one sitting. In a word, I liked it. I think I loved it, even. I didn't think it lived up to the rapturous praise many other Amazon reviewers gave it, but it was in fact really, really good. But it's not a book I'm going to hang on to, I'll reMooch it in a few days and let someone else sit up all night reading it.

The story is this: a former Mafia hitman goes into Witness Protection, ends up a doctor in Manhattan and discovers that one of his patients recognizes him from his past and threatens to turn him over to his old boss. The patient is terminal, but doesn't know it yet. And the doctor must decide to stay and care for him, or go back into Protection.

Bazell (a physician himself) has created a narrator that's immediately likable, despite the fact that he's a former hitman. He uses medical jargon throughout the text, but he translates faithfully, so I don't think it would be off putting to readers who aren't familiar with the terms. There's a fair bit about the ludicrous hours interns are expected to keep, and how they're all cracked out of their skulls from the pressure of those first years, and Bazell doesn't spare the reader much on this, but as many times as it made me wince in places, it made me laugh out loud as well, which I consider a fair trade.

The narrative happens in one day, but you're treated to several decades worth of flashbacks which works to carry the tension throughout the novel. The flashbacks I was especially impressed with -- they were written so gracefully, never feeling forced, which takes considerable talent.

Now that I'm back thinking about it, I'm finding I liked this book much more than I remember liking it. There are books that I read and as soon as I finish them, I want to start them all over. I felt that with the last several books I've read, and having not felt it with this one has perhaps colored my memory of it. But no, the truth is I loved it, clearly, I couldn't put it down until I'd finished it. But it didn't move me. I don't feel like a better person having read it. Which is not to say that everything I read ought to do that. I don't feel like a better person after eating gelato but hell if I don't love every single second of the experience.

Whenever I finish a book I try to think who I can recommend it to. With Reaper, I think I could recommend it to most people who want something light and quirky and darkly comic, but I'd advise they check it out of their library, or Mooch it and save the twenty bucks for something else.