Josh Bazell

The plot is highly original. Peter Brown is a young Manhattan intern who is not all he seems to be. He has a past and as any reader of crime novels knows the past never stays buried for long. Peter has had an edgy run-in with a mugger and a more congenial elevator one-to-one with a female pharmaceutics rep. But his most significant encounter is to be with a new hospital patient, Nicholas LoBrutto a man who knows the truth behind Peters artificially contrived faade: the young intern is, i n fact, in the Witness Protection program, and he remains in the gunsights of some unpleasant New Jersey heavies. And things are about to get very hot for both Peter and LoBrutto. Josh Bazell, as Beat the Reaper, demonstrates, is the real deal, and t he auguries for this debut are very good. If he can just sustain this level of invention and energy thoughout that difficult second novel