Seattle Times:

Los Angeles PR man Scott Singer, the narrator of "Slick," is a master at making even his stinkiest clients smell sweet. As he puts it, "I've pushed pollution and promoted porn. I've shilled for Shell and lied for Tide."

When we first meet him, Scott has managed to talk 128 New England coeds into flying to a Pacific island resort and baring it all to protest the danger the resort poses to the near-extinct Hawaiian monk seal. What the gals don't know is that their "protest" is just Mark's way of boosting advance reservations for his real client: the resort itself.

Having delivered a taste of his narrator's powers of persuasion and lack of conscience, author Daniel Price then sets Scott the challenge of a lifetime

Budding rap star Hunta, an incorrigible ladies' man, is in trouble. A female colleague is threatening to press rape charges against him — charges that take on more heft when one of Hunta's songs, "Bitch Fiend," indirectly inspires a high-school sex scandal and shooting spree. Hunta and his record label need someone to clean up his image — and fast.

Enter Scott, whose proposed remedy is to concoct a new, totally bogus rape charge against him, then expose it for what it is. That way, the first charges, if they go public, will look like mere copycat exploitation.

It's a wild scheme, and the novel itself is one wild ride. Scott soon discovers there's nothing remotely predictable about the actions of Hunta, Hunta's wife or Scott's skeptical co-conspirator Maxine Howard ("the emergency PR resource for almost every major African American organization in the country"). Above all, there's nothing predictable about Hunta's wonderfully named false accuser, Harmony Prince.

At 464 pages, "Slick" whips and swerves along like a book much shorter. Price, who runs a nicely biting Web site called Abusedbythe News.com, is clearly obsessed with the way our heads are spun into a tizzy by the media, and without ever tipping over into lecture mode, he tosses in lots of tidbits about the tricks of the trade and the history of news hoaxes (Ben Franklin was a pro).

If "Slick" has any real weakness, it's that Price reveals too soon — in a subplot involving a deaf Web site-builder and her media-savvy 13-year-old daughter — that Scott has a heart somewhere inside him. Still, that may be just what's needed to steer readers, against their better judgment, into rooting for his underhand efforts. (Michael Upchurch -- 10/03/04)