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Keeping Secrets
Keeping Secrets
Apr 24, 2025 6:17 AM

Author:Andrew Rosenheim

Keeping Secrets

It was his hideout, but now he did not feel safe at all.

The birds had suddenly gone quiet, and the boy was certain the man was in the woods below him. And then a voice fractured the unnatural hush.

'I know you're in there.' The voice was harsh but high-pitched, sounding strained.

It chilled the boy.

Thirty years ago, Jack Renoir's idyllic childhood on his uncle's California apple farm was shattered when he witnessed a brutal murder. With a single shot, his life changed forever.

Three decades later, Renoir is a man preoccupied with secrets and lies - a man who's forgotten how to trust. But when Kate Palmer walks into his San Francisco office, his carefully-controlled world is turned upside down. As his defences dissolve, Renoir moves to England with Kate to make a new start. But old habits die hard, and he is soon drawn into a murky world he hoped he had left behind for good. When his efforts to help Kate backfire, Renoir finds his unresolved past threatening to destroy his future...

Reviews

PRAISE FOR KEEPING SECRETS

—— .

Rosenheim delivers some cracking prose and is a writer of discerning intelligence

—— Telegraph

Gripping

—— Daily Mail

A neatly shaped story written in transparent prose with occasional flashes of poetry ... there are sharp twists and turns, with shocking revelations; the pace is fast, the prose lean ... readers will not find themselves bored for a second

—— Guardian

This novel is full of suspense but is also unashamedly romantic in a Sebastian Faulks-ish way

—— The Times

PRAISE FOR STILLRIVER

—— .

'Updikean in its loving use of detail... As well as being a poignant reflection on the vicissitudes of love, the insecurities of growing up and the need to discover what is important in life, it manages some genuinely scary thrills.'

—— Daily Telegraph

'A gutsy saga about last-minute redemption... Stillriver spans the troubled waters between Harlan Coben and Anita Shreve.'

—— Independent

'Rosenheim eschews playing the plot simply for thrills, preferring to engage the reader's emotions, but nevertheless comes up with a real page-turner.'

—— Daily Mail

S J Bolton's frission-generating Blood Harvest is a satisfyingly atmospheric 500-plus pages; a clever synthesis of two sure-fire strategies: the slow burning mystery...and the dark psychological crime narrative.

—— Good Book Guide, Oct 11

Ferocious...Cruelly funny and inventive...The book is fuelled by flights of nihilistic wit and by an exuberant contempt for criminals, the law, rednecks, the US healthcare system, the British, anti-Semites and anyone else who happens to be in the way...[Bazell] is clearly a writer, as very few in the field are

—— Sean O'Brien , Times Literary Supplement

Hip, violent, and funny, Beat the Reaper is a very engaging and furiously fast read

—— therapsheet.blogspot.com

Josh Bazell justifies the hype surrounding his debut novel to formulate a clever, imaginative piece tracking 24 hours in the life of the likeable Peter Brown...driven by fast -paced narrative and some neat plot twists that engage the reader's interest to the final page

—— The Press Association

A ferocious firecracker, ablaze with hilarious one-liners, plot switchbacks, gore, sex and even a James Bond-style tank full of sharks...Josh Bazell manages to make hitman/doctor hero Peter Brown a sympathetic, even lovable leading man of such intensity, he practically drags the reader along by the hair

—— Big Issue

It's the kind of stuff you should roll your eyes at, but it's too much fun to do anything but keep flipping pages to see where Bazell will take Peter next. And there are more pages yet to come, apparently; this is merely the first installment in a planned series, with a Leonardo DiCaprio-led movie also on the way. Read Beat the Reaper now, so you know what all the fuss is about later

—— Bullz Eye

Maybe not quite blown away so much as having my jaw drop to the floor on several occasions and having to endure the snap as it reconnected with the rest of my face. Beat the Reaper is like having a bucket of ice cold water poured over you - shocking, invigorating and certain to get your attention - but leaving you shivering and feeling a bit queasy after the initial assault on your senses is over

—— The Truth About Books

High octane thriller that moves along at a cracking pace

—— Bookseller

Fast, fun, furious, fierce...or better yet, stop reading the accolades for Beat the Reaper, open up to page one, and start reading. See you at the cash register

—— Harlan Coben

Outrageously funny ... This may be the most imaginative, albeit the most violent and profanity-laden, debuts of the new year ... If you don't like extreme gun violence, blow-by-blow descriptions of surgical procedures performed by doped-up, angry doctors, the lack of care administered by bitter nurses, misdiagnoses and a huge dose of vulgarity, this novel is not for you. If, however, you can take all of the above, you'll be treated to a story that gets at the heart of one man's immense loneliness and heartbreak. Be warned: One of the final scenes reaches new heights for gory. How then, you might ask, does this novel earn its comedic stripes? Bazell, a medical resident at the University of California, brings a Scrubs mind-set to his story and jacks it up to an outrageous level that will never be seen on network TV

—— USA Today

An unusually talented writer...Genuinely entertaining...The story is so engaging that you don't want to be yanked out of it...Darkly comic...Bazell has a knack for breathing new life into the most timeworn genre conventions....The climax of Beat the Reaper finds Brown locked in a medical freezer waiting for his arch-nemesis to arrive and finish him off. The plan Brown concocts to save himself is the novel's most original flourish. It is also completely outrageous, so much so that I had to stop and think about whether I could really suspend my disbelief. In the end I decided that Bazell had more than earned my indulgence as a reader. If there's a better recommendation for a story than that, I don't know what it is

—— New York Times Book Review

Suffering from Post-Holiday Stress Syndrome? Dr Josh Bazell has the prescription...he has written the first flat-out entertaining novel of 2009...It's an ingenious premise for a thriller, and Bazell pulls it off...Told with exquisite acerbic humour without sacrificing intrigue or tension...Beat the Reaper only gets better, turn by turn, page by page. Savvy and savagely diverting, it's a Tarantino movie made with Scorsese looking over his shoulder

—— New York Daily News

[a] breakneck cross between a hospital drama, "The Godfather" and a Quentin Tarantino film

—— Bloomberg.com

A propulsive, savvy read featuring characters both well shaded and shady, this debut thriller by a physician polymath with a BA in writing from Brown also offers the garnish du jour in the form of elaborate and funny footnotes (à la David Foster Wallace). You can prescribe this to fans of Carl Hiaasen and quirky abrasive fiction

—— Library Journal

[a] quirky and darkly humourous novel... Beat the Reaper is a wonderfully engaging novel that starts with a full-on beginning and doesn't let up until the end

—— Crimesquad.com

This is the second funniest health care-based fiction to come out of the United States this year after the Republican Party's descriptions of the NHS

—— Daily Telegraph
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