Riot Load (Dominick Prince, 2)

I loved Murder Boy, Quertermous' first Dominick Prince novel. But I think I like Riot Load even more. It retains everything that made Murder Boy great—the snappy dialogue, the surprising plot twists, the rich menagerie of criminal characters—but Dominick Prince’s first-person narration goes even deeper. Prince was always a relentlessly honest narrator, but now he seems wiser with time and critical distance. Take this passage, for example. Prince realizes he missed an opportunity to learn something about the life of a real working class man (a grave digger, of course, this being Quertermous’ twisted world) that he could have used in his writing: “It was one more reminder that I didn’t have the drive for writing, or the focus to take advantage of the opportunities afforded to me, and I was far too flaky and precious to make any sort of inroads in the traditional job world. That, more than anything else, was why I was not writing in New York City as had long been my dream and why I kept finding myself torn between the dying sparks of my romanticized view of the writing life and my romanticized view of a workaday blue collar life.” So while it was the torrential drive of the plot, the suspense and the bloodbaths that kept me turning the pages, it’s Dominick Prince himself that still has me thinking. . . and hoping for a third volume.

to heavy and meaningless darkness. trying too hard to be cool. couldn't finish it.

Bryon Quertermous takes the Wonder Boys vs. noir concept another step further in this one. A crazy, twisty book filled with some weird asides, great characters and wicked humor--RIOT LOAD really picks up in the pace in the back half and will have you racing through the pages.

There’s the easy way to do things, and there’s the hard way to do things. And then there’s the Dominick Prince way to do things. If given the choice and easy’s not an option, take the hard way over the Prince way. Having somehow survived the kidnapping and murderous adventures he found himself caught up in during series debut Murder Boy, Riot Load opens with Prince seemingly having obtained everything he nearly lost all chasing after. He landed the book deal he desperately craved, has a happy marriage, and his first child is on the way. Instead of dedicating himself to working on his next novel, however, Prince has continued in his dead-end administrative assistant job at the Detroit State University Cancer Center. His recent transfer to the center’s sperm lab is not the best career move for him, but it is the perfect “in” a friend needs for a special favor. Prince being Prince, things get really weird, really fast. Seems his friend wants him to sneak into the sperm lab after hours and steal the sample her now-deceased boyfriend left during his treatment for prostate cancer. Which would be an odd enough request as is, but the deceased also happened to be Prince’s brother-in-law, and Prince’s gun-toting bounty hunter wife is not thrilled with the idea. Far from it, actually. Throw in a couple of goons who also seem to be after the sample, a notorious mobster, various law enforcement agencies, and Prince’s own piss-poor judgment (“You’ll never be safe, Dominick. If it’s not this it’ll be the next thing. You’re your own worst enemy and you’re the worst enemy of everyone around you.” ) and you’re in for one hell of a warped ride. As he did in Murder Boy, author Bryon Quertermous once again brings his unique mix of outrageous plot, gallows humor, and pull no punches violence to bear in dropping Prince into the grinder. And once again the reader gets to follow along via the internal musings of honest to a fault narrator Prince, who at least shows some raised level of self-awareness following the events of Murder Boy. Make no mistake, Prince is still making some spectacularly bad decisions—what fun would the book be if he weren’t?—but at least this go ‘round his thought process is more sound, even if the outcomes aren’t. Readers will be happy to know that a third entry in the series, Trigger Switch, is on deck for this year. It’s scheduled to be the last in what was always planned as a trilogy, which is probably good for Dominick Prince, ‘cause I’m not sure exactly how much more the poor guy can take.

No sophomore slump for Mr. Quertermous. Can't wait for book three!

Riot Load Great read, but didn't expect anything less.

This is not your mother's crime novel--or anyone else's, for that matter. It's a completely unique, off-the-wall tale that will appeal to those readers who occasionally want to wander off the well-trodden paths of crime fiction for a book that's more than a little bizarre and offbeat, but in the best of ways. The protagonist, Dominick Prince, is a writer with a book deal, a new wife, and a baby on the way. Life is good, or rather it would be for almost anyone other than Dominick who seems almost grimly determined to heedlessly blow the opportunities life has given him. Rather than being hard at work on his book, he's taken a menial job working at a university cancer center in Detroit. He's barely able to stand the monotony of the job and then opportunity presents itself when an old friend appears and suggests that Dominick help her rob a sperm bank. (I warned you that this wasn't your mother's crime novel.) With a premise like that, what more do you really need to know? Besides Dominick Prince, Riot Load is populated by a cast of characters the likes of which most readers have rarely met. The action, the dialogue and the characters are at the same time scary as hell and hilariously funny. Once into the book, you keep turning the pages as quickly as you can because, truth to tell, you've never read a story quite like this before. Bryon Quertermous has a unique voice and a way of looking at the world that's more than a little off-norm. It all adds up to one of the strangest and most entertaining books I've read in a long time--a great way to spend an afternoon and evening.