Little, Brown Wins 'Reaper'
by Matthew Thornton -- Publishers Weekly, 10/5/2007 10:41:00 AM
Reagan Arthur at Little, Brown emerged victorious at the end of a two-day, eight-house auction for North American rights to Josh Bazell’s debut novel, Beat the Reaper, which looks to be another major title at this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair. Agent Markus Hoffmann at Regal Literary made the seven-figure deal for two books. Hoffmann has already accepted a preempt for Dutch rights, and Lauren Pearson in Regal’s London office just wrapped up an auction in the U.K., with William Heinemann taking it with a high-five-figure bid for one book. An auction is currently ongoing in Italy.
Beat the Reaper, described as a dark comedy thriller, features a young, highly competent doctor named Pietro Brwna who is also a former hitman for the New Jersey mafia. One morning, checking on his hospital patients, he reencounters a former criminal associate and realizes his past is back with a vengeance.
Bazell, currently a resident at the University of California, San Francisco, has a BA in writing from Brown and an MD from Columbia. He has worked as a screenwriter, and while in medical school, investigated suspicious deaths for the Chief Medical Examiner of the City of New York. He is presently at work on his second Pietro Brwna novel.
