Beat the Reaper is a 2009 crime novel, the debut novel of author/physician Josh Bazell.
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 Brnwa, 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 Brnwa, lest the patient reveal Brnwa/Brown's location to the local crime boss.
Beat the Reaper received reviews from Bloomberg News, Booklist, The Guardian,Kirkus Reviews, Publishers Weekly, and The Washington Post.
In 2010, Beat the Reaper was shortlisted for the Barry Award for Best First Novel.
In 2009, New Regency Productions acquired film rights to the novel with an eye toward Leonardo DiCaprio as co-producer and Sebastian Stan as lead actor.