7.6 /10 1 Votes
Originally published January 2009 Genres Fiction, Crime Fiction | 3.8/5 Goodreads | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Fiction books Brava - Valentine, The Risk Pool, The Midnight Tour, The Blind Years, A Question of Blood: An Inspec | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The firesign theatre beat the reaper
Beat the Reaper is a crime novel published in 2009, the debut novel of author/physician Josh Bazell.
Contents
Several observers, including Phil Proctor, have noted that "Beat the Reaper" was also the title of a comedy sketch by the Firesign Theatre, it is not currently known whether Bazell was aware of the previous usage.
Plot
The plot, written in first-person and alternating between present-day scenes and flashbacks, concerns Peter Brown, a medical resident in the Federal Witness Protection Program.
In the flashback chapters Brown narrates how, under his real name of Pietro Brwna, he fell in with a Mafia family and became a hitman after avenging the deaths of his grandparents who had survived the Nazi death camp Auschwitz. In the present, Brown must help save the life of a mobster who knew him as Brwna, lest the patient reveal Brwna/Brown's location to the local crime boss.
Film
New Regency Productions has acquired film rights to the novel with an eye toward Leonardo DiCaprio as co-producer and lead actor.