Wild Thing: A Novel

Josh Bazell

Feb 2012 · Sold by Back Bay Books

About this ebook

It's hard to find work as a doctor when using your real name will get you killed. So hard that when a reclusive billionaire offers Dr. Peter Brown, aka Pietro Brnwa, a job accompanying a sexy but self-destructive paleontologist on the world's worst field assignment, Brown has no real choice but to say yes. Even if it means that an army of murderers, mobsters, and international drug dealers -- not to mention the occasional lake monster -- are about to have a serious Pietro Brnwa problem.

Facing new and old monsters alike, Dr. Brnwa's story continues in this darkly funny and lightning-paced follow up to Josh Bazell's bestselling debut.

Ratings and reviews

Dr. Lionel Azimuth AKA Dr. Pietro Brnwa is incognito! He is in the Witness Protection program hiding from the "MOB." Dr. Violet Hurst is a paleontologist that works for a billionaire who loves dealing on long shots. His nickname is Rec Bill (Reclusive Billionaire). The two doctors meet when Rec Bill hires Dr. Azimuth to go to Minnesota with Violet to check out a story about a man-eating monster in a lake there that has reportedly killed several people, and to keep an eye on Violet and make sure she stays safe. Is the story true, or is it just a hoax? They know that somehow 4 people have been killed, and one seriously injured. Is Dr. Azimuth there to help Dr. Hurst prove there is a monster, or to disprove it? What does Rec Bill want them to do? While working on the theory of the monster the two doctors have a run-in with meth-making restaurant owner, various conflicting monster accounts, and even the "MOB." What secrets will be laid bare before they find the monster? "Wild Thing" took me a little while to really get into it, but after a couple of chapters it peeked my interest. Sometimes there was a little too much jumping to different time periods...but I could understand where some of it tied in with the story! I did always wonder what was going to come next, what would go wrong next, and who were really the good guys? There is a lot of cursing and sexual innuendos...a little more than necessary to make a great story!

This is basically a very enjoyable book, but the e-book format comes close to destroying it. There are hundreds of footnotes, many of which are needed to clarify what is going on in the story. But these are simply lumped together on 150 (!!) pages at the end, with no way of reading them at the point in the narrative where they belong. Books like this should not be offered in this format. At the very least, a format with appropriate links back and forth between text and footnotes needs to be developed. Failing that, it is immoral not to warn the potential reader that he/she is getting a seriously deficient version of the book.

About the author

Josh Bazell has a BA in writing from Brown University and an MD from Columbia. His first book, the international bestseller Beat the Reaper, has been published in thirty-two languages and was one of Time's ten best novels of 2009. He lives in Brooklyn and Barcelona.