Time Out New York:

Price's debut just might do for unctuous PR flacks what Paradise Lost did for the Prince of Darkness himself--put a tragic, even heroic visage on the devil you only think you know.

This prescient satirical novel concerning the behind-the-scenes manipulation of a mass murder/sex scandal case is so brash that its protagonist--tall, suave, self-serving heartbreaker Scott Singer--could join All About Eve's Addison DeWitt and Sweet Smell of Success's JJ Hunsecker among the ranks of charming villains you love to hate. Singer, a guerrilla PR consultant, is proud to admit he's the man responsible for everything from what brand of soap is the consumer favorite to which diseases (and their high-profit margin "cures") are considered newsworthy. With one upload of a VNR (video news release), he can transform a lofty concept like "responsibility" into fast-absorbing sound bites that focus fame or blame according to whoever can pay his astronomical day rate.

When rumors circulate that a client's scandalous rap single has inspired a high-school bloodbath, Singer concots a preposterous scheme to deflect public fallout. As lives are ruined and fortunes are made and lost through Singer's cunning machinations, the already blurry line between guilt and innocence becomes nothing more than a question of semantics and cash on the barrelhead.

Heavy stuff. but Slick's bitterly comic tone--as expressed through Singer's pseudophilosophical musings--is as polished and precise as anything by novelists Will Self or Mark Leyner. Price's richly perverse prose makes a plea for compassion for his captivating demon and the media slime pit that spawned him. More often than not, it's a success. (LD Beghtol -- 9/1/04)