Choke Hold (Hard Case Crime) [Paperback]

Christa Faust (Author)

Book Description

Release date: October 4, 2011 | Series: Hard Case Crime

INSIDE THE WORLD OF MIXED MARTIAL ARTS - AND MURDER... 

Angel Dare went into Witness Protection to escape her past -- not as a porn star, but as a killer who took down the sex slavery ring that destroyed her life. But sometimes the past just won't stay buried. 

When a former co-staris gunned down, it's up to Angel to get his son, a hotheaded MMA fighter, safely through the unforgiving Arizona desert, shady Mexican bordertowns, and the seductive neon mirage of Las Vegas... 

Editorial Reviews

Review

“The sex industry, bodybuilding drugs, and basic revenge make for a potent cocktail in this eye-popping follow-up to Faust’s Edgar Award nominee. She’s Hard Case Crime’s only female author, and her tough heroine is a welcome addition to the gritty pulp tradition. Snap it up...” - Library Journal

"Faust’s explosive, bullet-dodging sequel to Money Shot... a far superior wrapup to the action, noir as bleak as you’ll find this year." - Publisher’s Weekly

"She’ll get you turning pages faster than a wrestler on ‘roids." - Bizarre Magazine

"A sexy and violent thriller..." - Suicide Girls

"Faust’s tough gal heroine and punchy way of delivering her violent plot quickly grabbed this reader." - Blog Critics

The First Lady [of Hard Case Crime] is certainly earning her stars and stripes in the crime fiction world. - We Love This Book

An astounding novel... funny, heartbreaking, violent and sexy, Choke Hold has everything you’d wish for in a thriller. - Guilty Conscience Review

About the Author

Christa Faust is a successful horror and crime writer. Her most recent novelMoney Shot for Hard Case Crime won the Crimespree Award and was nominated for several others, including the prestigious Edgar Award.

She has written tie-ins to Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street and theTwilight Zone amongst others. She lives in Los Angeles, California, and loves vintage shoes and noir cinema. 

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Hard Case Crime (October 4, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0857682857
• ISBN-13: 978-0857682857
• Product Dimensions: 5.1 x 0.8 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #261,709 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Christa Faust is the author of eleven novels, including the Edgar and Anthony award nominated MONEY SHOT, CHOKE HOLD, and HOODTOWN, as well as the Scribe award winning novelization of SNAKES ON A PLANE and hardboiled lesbian P.I. series BUTCH FATALE: DYKE DICK.

She grew up in New York City, in the Bronx and Hell's Kitchen. She's been making stuff up her whole life, and spent most of her teen years on endless subway rides, cutting school and scribbling stories.

After High School finally had enough of her, she worked in the Times Square peep booths and later as a fetish model and professional Dominatrix.

She sold her first short story when she moved to Los Angeles in the early 90s. After nearly 20 years in her beloved adopted city, she still considers herself an expat rather than a native.

She's an avid reader and collector of vintage paperbacks, a Film Noir enthusiast and a Tattooed Lady. She writes primarily Hardboiled crime fiction, but also does work-for-hire media tie in novels.

She lives in Porn Valley with too many shoes and her Boston Terrier Butch.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The World of Angel Dare November 16, 2011

By Charles Hoffman

Format:Paperback

Choke Hold is the follow-up to the gifted Christa Faust's tour de force, Money Shot. Choke Hold is not quite as tightly plotted as Money Shot. And I was expecting more in the way of mixed martial arts ring action. (This due to the cover illustration, and my awareness that Ms. Faust is a UFC enthusiast.) However, the author continues to excel in her harrowing character portraits of hurt, damaged people. In this capacity she is virtually without peer.

For those not familiar with these two fine noir thrillers, the narrator and protagonist is former porn star Angel Dare. Though a strong, determined street-smart woman, Angel is also both a smokin' hot sex goddess and (due to her tendency to become embroiled in the worst sort of trouble) a damsel-in-distress. This juxtaposition makes her irresistible, capable of transforming middle-aged male readers (like myself) into teenage boys imagining themselves in protector / savior roles. Money Shot was originally intended as a stand-alone story, but readers could not get enough of this alluring heroine. I, for one, look forward to future installments, and hope that things ultimately turn out okay for Angel.

Money Shot was concerned with the porn industry, neither romanticizing nor demonizing the trade. The smarter, savvier performers tend to come out of it okay, while the foolish, weak, and gullible often come to bad ends. With Choke Hold, the author extends her thesis to the world of the professional fighter. Many strive with all they have to do battle in the ring (or octogon), only to break their hearts in vain and/or ruin their once superb bodies; only a few achieve any sort of wealth or recognition. The author has noted a kinship between porn actors and pro fighters, in the sense that they sell their bodies for the entertainment of others. The porn starlet is the epitome of exaggerated, hyper-sexual female allure, while the fighter epitomizes the ultimate in macho manliness.

Choke Hold, like Money Shot before it, is ultimately a tragedy. One comes away with a profound sense of sadness. Characters enter into a kind of devil's bargain (fittingly, for an author named Faust.) What ultimately drives them to ruin is their dreams --their unrealistic ambitions, over-reaching aspirations, and pathetic desperate hopes. Their proud Glory Days, strutting and flaunting their magnificent young bodies before the camera and in the ring, are, like Dowson's days of wine and roses, all too brief --and followed by a dismal, decades-long aftermath.

Nor is that the worst that can befall Ms. Faust's hapless characters. Evil is out there, in the form of vicious criminal cartels and sex-slave rings --the sort of all-too-real horrors that are even this minute causing unbelievable suffering and misery somewhere in the world. Living life on the edge as they do, Ms. Faust's characters easily run afoul of these malefactors.

This, then, is the world of Angel Dare.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Choke Hold doesn't choke October 20, 2011

By LitTeacher

Format:Kindle Edition

Angel Dare is a former porn star, now in the Witness Protection program after testifying against a ring of sex traffickers.
Her cover is blown when one of her old co-stars is gunned down where she's working, and she agrees to protect his son, who hopes to become a fighter.

Cody is a nice kid, and he could have been Angel's son if his father, AKA "Thick Vic," had been more faithful. Cody is sweet, fairly bright, very virile, and refreshingly naive. His trainer Hank was a champion fighter who now takes dozens of pills to offset the damage done to him during his own stint in the ring. Since Cody needs to go to Las Vegas for an audition to get on the fight team, Angel and Hank will escort him. The trio is so distinctive a blind man could spot them at midnight in a heavy fog, but off they go, stealing cars one county at a time and killing everyone who tries to kill them first.

Faust writes hard-boiled/noir, which means that (A) things will go to hell almost immediately and get worse from there, and (B) everyone will betray everyone else somewhere along the way. Her prose is visceral, violent, and darkly funny, and the characters are what the genre demands without ever becoming stereotypes. Throw in drugs, revenge, and enough plot twists to make Charles Dickens jealous, and you've got this book.

It's a fast, fun read, and I'm already looking forward to seeing more of Angel Dare. So to speak.

4.0 out of 5 stars Popping Off The Page November 21, 2012

By Robert Downs

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

To say I devoured this novel might be a bit of understatement. To say I enjoyed it might be a bit of an understatement as well. Needless to say, Angel Dare is the bomb, and I can't seem to get enough of her. Literally. For me it's all about the characters, and CHOKE HOLD has more than its share of interesting individuals. Angel and her posse practically pop off the page, and along the way, she more than delivered on a few surprises.

Christa Faust certainly seems to have a friend or two in the porn industry, or maybe she goes all in on the research, studying footage on the Internet, or visiting sets through the back door. But how she does it doesn't really matter. What matters is that she pulls it off with her plot, and most importantly, with her characters. She captures a few of the highs and more than enough lows.

If you're looking for a wild ride, with a former porn queen who can still deliver the goods, then you'd be hard-pressed to find a more entertaining read.

Robert Downs
Author of Falling Immortality: Casey Holden, Private Investigator