Slick

If a book could rise up the charts on voice alone, Price's debut novel about an L.A. publicist's unscrupulous machinations would be a clear Billboard hit. The first-person narration by self-described media manipulator Scott Singer is deliciously arch and bitchy. A true noir-ish character, Singer is a man with few detectable morals--the book opens with him tricking a bunch of activists into protesting in the nude.""NAKED YOUNG WOMEN PROTEST BEACH RESORT,"" he thinks.""Now that would stop the presses."" But one of Singer's few rules is that he doesn't do character assassination, which makes it doubly hard for him when he's hired to deflect the press away from hot young rapper Hunta, who's about to be hit with a rape charge. Rather than demolish the accuser's reputation, Singer suggests a media hoax: an outlandish scheme to have another woman level a fake rape charge against Hunta, which can then be disproved. However, the woman he finds turns out to be far sharper than he imagined, and she has her own ideas as to how she will--or won't--be used in this scheme. Snappy dialogue keeps the story rolling along through several well-timed plot twists, though most of the characters are as one-dimensional as a press release. The author's attempts to humanize Singer just don't ring true--he's too convincing as a self-absorbed Machiavelli.