Sophia C. reviewed on 6/26/2010 + 289 more book reviews

Beat the Reaper is as improbable as a medical intern's dream: both are satisfying and damn rare. Peter Brown is a medical intern at a fictional Manhattan dysfunctional hospital. It's going to be another brutal, surreal day of medicine until the signet cell gastric cancer patient recognizes him as "Bearclaw," former top mob hitman presently in the Federal Witness Protection Program. In order to save himself, he has to save the patient, and even practice some medicine along the way. In alternate chapters our protagonist describes his upbringing and initiation into the mafia to avenge his grandparents' home invasion homicides to his fallout with the bad guys, and how he tries to keep them away in the present day. Both storylines are peppered with informative yet cynical footnotes dispensing interesting medical information. It's a bit of House of God*meets the Sopranos written in edgy masculine text by a young doctor, so the medicine is real enough to one who has been in the trenches. Be warned, though, that there's some gruesomeness which is hard to stomach towards the end.



*a cult classic among the MD set, written by Samuel Shem.

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