October 15, 2017
How to get away with murder, again. Ever since his troublesome days at prep school in his native England, Dominic has been well-aware that he's a psychopath with no sense of empathy, guilt, or fear. We first met him (Hollow Man, 2015) when he and some friends stole a lot of money and avoided charges for two murders. Dominic's only joy in life is his music, which has won him a devoted following in the Austin, Texas, clubs he plays. His job as a prosecutor in juvenile court brings him up against Bobby, a budding psychopath and the younger brother of the stunning, nameless young woman with whom Dominic has a secret relationship. For her sake, Dominic does his best to keep the teen out of jail. That's no easy task because Bobby's often in trouble, and his condition leads him to believe he's too clever to get caught. In between rounds with Bobby, Dominic toys with fellow juvenile prosecutor Brian McNulty, a borderline incompetent who thirsts after a judgeship that will soon be available. Detective Megan Ledsome, the officer who investigated the robbery and murder Dominic managed to cover up, still has an eye on him and has questioned Bobby, who decides it might be a good idea if she ended up dead. Once she's killed, Dominic struggles to keep Bobby in the clear. But the game changes when Dominic finds Bobby shot to death, a possible suicide, while he's on a ride-along with the local police. Rolling as usual with the punch, Dominic cooks up a complicated plan to keep himself out of trouble while messing up McNulty's plans to secure the judgeship, a job Dominic feels suits him much better. His surface charm, intelligence, wealthy upbringing, and good looks make Pryor's antihero popular with his co-workers. Readers, by contrast, may find it hard to work up much sympathy for a man who lacks any normal human feelings.
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November 27, 2017
Austin, Tex., prosecuting attorney Dominic, the principal narrator of Pryor’s unsettling if unsatisfying sequel to 2015’s Hollow Man, has an interest in protecting 16-year-old Bobby, because Bobby knows he’s a murderer. A charming psychopath, Dominic sees Bobby as “a younger version of me, too young to actually be diagnosed as a psychopath, but headed in the right direction.” Dominic accepts Bobby’s offer to help stop the homicide detective investigating the unsolved murder he committed a year earlier. Another person who poses a threat to Dominic is Brian McNulty, his hapless officemate, whose ordinary first-person narrative nicely contrasts with Dominic’s. Brian has his eye on a judgeship that Dominic wants for himself. The plot takes some surprising and often convenient turns, at times straining credulity. Fans of Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho may be okay with Dominic, but others will have a problem with the lack of any central characters that engender sympathy, let alone empathy. Agent: Ann Collette, Rees Literary Agency.