Review: How much are you willing to pay?
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 05 29, 2014
What do you get when you combine a narcissistic sociopath with the face and body of every cowboy you’ve ever dreamed about with a nice guy who wants to find happiness and believes there is good in everyone? The Price of Dick. This book is Dan Skinner’s second full length novel. And if you haven’t read his first one, Memorizing You, please do yourself a favor and do so immediately after you finish reading The Price of Dick.Richard Fitch is Dick, and he lives up to that name and beyond. He is the soul of the devil in a thousand dollar suit. Evil personified masked with beautiful blue eyes and a chin coveted by millions of patients who consult with plastic surgeons annually. He is also the consummate conman. He could flash those baby blues and that smile, or that beautiful athlete's body and make you believe you really want to do that thing he just convinced you to do. You'll actually believe it was your own idea in the first place!J.J. Johnstone hasn't had a great life thus far. He's got no family, but is just beginning to build a great reputation for himself as a photographer of romance novel covers. When he sees Dick, he jumps. He wants to be the one to go home with him. To be the chosen one among all the men and women who follow Dick around the gym like he's some sort of grifter Pied Piper. If you are unfamiliar with the original folklore surrounding the Pied Piper, he was a beautifully outfitted man who played his flute to lead children out of their village to never return. He was later rumored to be a rat catcher who, when the villagers refused to pay him, turned his magic flute on the children and used their disappearance as revenge against their parents.This is, of course, legend, folklore, fiction. The Price of Dick is also a work of fiction. There are portions of the book that are loosely based on the author's own experiences. But for the most part, it is fiction. Imagine if you will, a Dick that is even more evil than the one artfully presented by Mr. Skinner. Make your skin crawl? It should. Pennywise the clown would be a less dangerous bed mate.Dan Skinner is a photographer. He works with visual stimuli. So when he writes, his brain is able to transform his words into a picture for the reader. I have no idea how he does it without pages and pages of boring, "this looked like that, that smelled like this, the air was... blah, blah, blah." But he does. His unique voice and cadence create word pictures and leave the reader breathless. By the third time reading through this manuscript, it should have been boring. Instead, I kept finding layers of beauty and pain that I hadn't noticed before.Almost from the beginning of The Price of Dick, the reader has a bad feeling about Dick. But we have faith in J.J.. Then somewhere along the story line, that bad feeling and faith turns into terror. Not the Pennywise kind of terror, but the terror one feels when they are seeing someone they have come to care about heading for certain disaster and can do not one little thing to prevent it.I've read every review I could of this book. To a one, they all wanted to reach into the pages of the book and shake some sense into J.J. and choke the life out of Dick. But you have to just turn those pages as quickly as you can as the train comes blazing down the track. You don't dare look away while waiting for the inevitable.There is sex. Anyone familiar with Dan's photography work (and if you aren't, why not?) knows that there is sex. The chemistry he creates in his photos is organic. It can't be faked. The sex is hot and well written. Again, Dan's giftedness comes into play. He writes some really raunchy stuff. But it doesn't feel dirty or lascivious when you read it or leave you feeling trashy afterward. It is just enough.Alex. We all need an Alex. He is motivational in every sense of the word. Picturing his butt in those yellow shorts almost made me want to take up running. The stories he shares from his family made me melt. To avoid spoilers, I won't share anymore about him other than to say I hope that I, and every one reading this either has an Alex in their life, or meets him someday.In The Price of Dick, Dan Skinner has created a most memorable character. The title is fitting whether Dick is taken as a formal name or as a slang name for a particular part of male anatomy. It works wither way. Or both.While this book may scare you, it isn't the horror movie kind of scare, it's more like you are worried about someone because you know he's headed for major trouble. The title may alarm you, make you think the book is porny. While there is gay sex in this book, it is not gratuitous. It is used in limited quantities to advance the plot and character development. The "Dick" in the title really is the name of one of the completely unforgettable MCs. Which direction your mind chooses to interpret it is your own thing.None of that should stop you from reading The Price of Dick. Dan Skinner has taken "a wolf in sheep's clothing" to an entirely new level. It's alarming how well camouflaged a true sociopath is able to be. There may be one sitting next to you right now.