Customer Reviews

MONEY SHOT

5 star:		(35)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

If you had ever thought that women couldn't write hard-boiled fiction, Christa Faust will quickly prove you wrong. Her new book Money Shot shows she is not only a good female crime writer, she is just a good writer period.

The narrator and heroine of Money Shot is Angel Dare, a retired porn actress who is now moderately successful as an agent for other women in her former field. Approaching forty and lamenting it, she is talked into making one last movie with up-and-coming star Jesse Black, who's personally requested her. She arrives at the set only to find out it's all a trap: Jesse and her movie director friend Sam have lured her here at the request of some mobster who's looking for a lost briefcase filled with cash. When Angel can't come up with the necessary answers, they leave her to Jesse who shoots her and leaves her for dead in the back of an abandoned car.

Fortunately, Jesse is not that great in the killing department and Angel survives, only to find she is accused of Sam's murder. As a wounded fugitive, she has few options, but she does have a friend in her company's security guy, Lalo Malloy. As an ex-cop, Malloy is resourceful enough, and he hides her. The two then try to clear Angel, find the briefcase, and most importantly for her, get revenge for the abuse she suffered.

Besides the fact that Faust has a nice writing style, she also doesn't fall into many of the cliches of the genre, leading to twists and a conclusion that are unexpected but good. She also provides a deeper look into the porn industry than you might typically find in a crime story about the field; I also personally enjoyed her use of my native San Fernando Valley as a setting (as also noted in the movie Boogie Nights, the Valley is the porn film production capital). Money Shot is a thoroughly enjoyable little thriller and Christa Faust is a name to keep a look out for.

Christa Faust proves that women can write crime stories that are more hard-boiled than men with Money Shot.

Angel Dare is a former porn starlet who now owns a "modeling agency." An old friend is in a bind and asks her to do an onscreen appearance as a favor. When she shows up to what she thinks will be the set, she is beaten by her supposed co-star, witnesses the murder of the friend that double crossed her, and her body is dumped in the trunk of a car.

Angel manages to escape, and with the help of her agency's security officer Malloy she sets out to learn why she was set up and to seek vengeance against those who hurt her.

This book is not for the easily offended or the weak of stomach. There are a number of violent scenes, and the picture that Faust paints of the porn industry is not a pleasant one. However, with plenty of action and a hard as nails heroine, this book is sure to entertain fans of Tarantino or readers with a dark sense of humor.

A new paperback series called Hard Case Crime has been on the market since 2004 and is reminiscent of the hard-boiled crime pulp novels of the fifties and early sixties. The publishers give new and established authors the opportunity to write a PI mystery, or a police procedural, or a straight who-done-it suspense thriller in the style of times long passed. The series premiered with The Colorado Kid by Stephen King and from there has showcased the talents of Donald E. Westlake, Lawrence Block, Max Allan Collins, Richard Powell, David Dodge, and now Christa Faust, just to name a few.

Christa Faust has been writing for over ten years, putting her impressive stamp on fiction in the erotic/suspense field, horror, movie novelizations, and crime/mystery. Her latest book is Money Shot, and it continues the line of Hard Case Crime novels with a story of crime, sex, murder, and revenge. There's no holding back here as Ms. Faust lets go with both barrels of the shotgun, demonstrating that women can write crime novels every bit as intense and edge-of-your-seat as the men, if not better.

Money Shot deals with Angel Dare, a former porn star who now runs a modeling and talent agency for women in the Adult business. The novel starts out with Angel tied up in the trunk of an old Honda Civic, contemplating her impending death. It seems that a local Hollywood crime boss, who runs a sex/slave ring consisting of foreign women who come to America with dreams of a good life, has had a briefcase full of money stolen from one of his men, and the woman who took it happened to pay a visit to Angel's office on the day that she died. The money has disappeared, and the crime boss thinks that Angel may know something about it. He has her tortured in order to find out what she knows. When he soon realizes that she knows nothing, he has one of his men drive her to the parking lot of a vacant warehouse so that a bullet can be put into her head. She barely manages to escape with her life and has to turn to a part-time employee named Malloy, who used to be an LAPD Homicide detective. Together, they try to stay one step ahead of the bad guys and to find the briefcase. Angel, however, wants more than just the money. She's after revenge for what was done to her and wants to kill everyone involved. Malloy knows from first hand experience that revenge doesn't always clear the air, and all he wants is to find the money and then get out Dodge with Angel before their times runs out. A lot of people are going to die terrible deaths before the climax is finally reached, and Angel is going to discover that even your closest friends can't be trusted when large amounts of money are at stake.

This is not a PG-13 crime novel. No, way! Christa Faust doesn't hold back or pull any punches in Money Shot with the language, the sex, and the violence. She tells it like it really is. Some readers might find this offensive, but for true aficionados of crime fiction this is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. She gives you an inside look at the porn industry in all its shades of black and white, takes you on a tour to the seedier sides of Los Angeles, creates some very believable characters that resonate with an evil all of their own, and delivers a genuine heroine who has to become what she hates the most in order to get even with those who destroyed her life and killed her friends. This isn't a novel for the weak of heart.

Christa Faust is definitely an author to keep an eye out for. Now that she's had a taste of being a hardboiled crime writer, there's no stopping her!

The advance accolades for Christa Faust's book, MONEY SHOT, are amply deserved. But, not to be a spoil sport, I'd like to make a minor (well, maybe not so minor) correction in their general premise: That Ms. Faust, the First Lady to be published by Hard Case Crime Books, is hot on the heels of the "big boys" and has "earned" comparisons to the likes of Cornell Wollrich and Gil Brewer. Phooey to this, I say. Let's be honest here: Christa Faust is the real thing. With MONEY SHOT, she earns a rightful place alongside, if not above, her heralded male counterparts. Imagine a literary mix of Elmore Leonard, Jack O'Connell, and Mickey Spillane, with a healthy dash of Jim Thompson and you get the magic elixir called Christa Faust.
Faust's writing surpasses all the old standbys like "hard-hitting", "gusty", "brutal", "sexy", and "authentic." Don't call it feminine realism-- it would blow your socks off regardless the gender of its protagonist, who happens to be a former porn star cum talent agent named Angel Dare. Write with authority, demand those who purport to teach the craft; write from your heart and mind and underscore it with conviction and confidence. That's exactly what you get with MONEY SHOT. Faust delivers a brand of authority and heartfelt conviction about the seamy side of the entertainment industry rarely, if ever, found in a popular novel. And, if that's not enough, the book is damn humorous and serious in places (a combination few writers pull off effectively). Take this line for example: "On the surface, my feminine ego was bruised, knowing that my bedroom blackbelt hadn't been enough to make him stay." I dare say (no pun intended) had Christa Faust chosen the James Tiptree Jr. route to publishing she would have already been declared successor to any one or more of those writers she most admires, Richard S. Prather and Megan Abbott. At any rate, enough well deserved praise, let's get to MONEY SHOT, which I devoured in one sitting, leaving me a little breathless and, in true American fashion, wanting a whole lot more.
Gina Moretti, whose stage name is Angel Dare, is retired at the ripe old age of 30 from a successful career as a porn star. Angel made her first adult video when she was twenty, lying that she was eighteen because she knew it would boost her worth in the industry. It does, and soon she is a living "porno Cinderella story", but she's wise enough to understand that before the industry uses her completely up she must "use it right back." Happy and content, Angel now operates her own business, Daring Angels, a high-class adult modeling agency that, right out of the blocks, begins to make money. Life is good for Angel and it's getting better; but, as the most weathered of us realize, it is such comfort that should put us on high alert. An old friend named Sam Hammer calls Angel and asks her to do just one more video. Sam is "a cross between Santa Claus and John Holmes" and Angel, despite her better judgment, says yes. And then all hell, and more, breaks loose and Angel is drawn lock, stock and barrel into a fight for her life that makes a Tarantino movie look like a children's cartoon.
Close to the completely unexpected climax of MONEY SHOT, it occurred to me that Christa Faust had skillfully crafted a story that at its most unexpected turns looped back on itself. In the tried and true fashion of life itself, Angel's bloody quest to discover why she has become the object of extreme violence turns on life's odd moments of inter-connectedness. With this kind of insight, I suspect Faust will be putting out more noir classics in the future and that they will deservedly get snapped up like mad.

AN EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH CHRISTA FAUST
The short biographical blurb on Christa that accompanied the advance copy of MONEY SHOT was replete with enticers. Christa has been a filmmaker, a model, a Times Square peepshow girl, and an award-winning author. Most recently Faust was given the coveted Scribe Award for her novelization of SNAKES ON A PLANE. She is also the author of two earlier novels, HOODTOWN and CONTROL FREAK. Faust is also a devotee of full-body tattoo art and an expert on the traditional forms of Mexican masked wrestling.

HPA: It's not very often that I'm more curious about an author rather than the book, but you're a fascinating person. Having no clue how old you are, can you tell me about your younger years?

CF: I'm 38. I grew up in New York City, in a divorced parent split between the Bronx and Hell's Kitchen. I was kind of a problem child, issues with authority, antisocial. I was kicked out of multiple schools and ran away a lot. I was the weird kid with the notebook who would cut class to hang out in the library. I never got into drugs or drinking and didn't really fit into any one particular crowd. I spent most of my teenage years by myself, reading and writing. The city itself was like a parent to me in a lot of ways, since I spent so much time walking around alone, hanging out in parks and riding the subway. I've lived in Los Angeles for 15 years and love my adopted city, but I will always consider myself a New Yorker at heart.

HA: What first attracted you to writing?

CF: I've been making stuff up for as long as I can remember. I recently helped my dad move out of his house up in the Bronx and found stacks and stacks of "books" I had written as a child. As a kid I was into hard SF. When the hormones hit, I became a teenage splatterpunk. Then, when I became too old to trust, I got a taste for the hardboiled.

HPA: Any favorite writers?

CF: I love Richard Prather's Shell Scott and Stark's Parker. Current favorite writers include Michael Marshall (Smith), Megan Abbott and Ray Banks.

HPA: Tell me about your tattoos; what did mom and dad think?

CF: I waited until I was 30 to start working on my tattoos because I
didn't want to get stuck with some fool thing that I used to think was
cool back when I was a kid. There's an overall theme, all birds of one
sort or another and mostly based on antique natural history prints. I
designed my back piece myself, a large hummingbird against a
background of Japanese maple branches. I have a winged typewriter on
my stomach that I got when I had my tubes tied. It's tribute to my
decision to make books instead of babies. When people ask me how many
tattoos I have, I always say "one" because I think of it all as one
big design.

My parents are both very supportive and non-judgmental. They never
pushed me to get married and have babies. They encouraged me to be
myself. Honestly, my tattoos are the least of the things I've done
that might worry a more conservative parent and they never once made
me feel bad about myself. They love me, as is. I'm lucky.

HPA: Will Angel Dare be back?

CF: I don't have any concrete plans for another Angel Dare book at the
moment, but I wouldn't completely rule it out either. She's a fun
character to write about.

HPA: Is Angel modeled on anyone you know? Yourself?

CF: All my characters have a little bit of me in them but Angel is
definitely her own woman and probably the most traditionally feminine
character I've ever created. She's so much more girly than I am. A lot
of writers create characters with an idea of which actors would play
them in a movie, but I've never done it that way. To me, they seem
like real people.

HPA: How did you get involved in the SNAKES ON A PLANE project?

CF: I had been writing novelizations and tie-ins for a British company
called Black Flame. They asked me if I wanted to take a crack at
novelizing this campy script about killer snakes called "Pacific Air
Flight 121." It sounded like a hoot, so I said yes. It wasn't until I
was already involved in writing the novelization that the internet
hype and excitement about the film really kicked in. It was really a
blast.

HPA: You write so eloquently and humorously about the porn industry; what do you really think about it?

CF: The adult film industry is like any other business. There are good
guys and bad guys and a whole lot of in-between. There are predators
and unsung heroes. Strong, smart, self-reliant girls who love sex and
know how to work the angles and plenty of hapless victims with low
self-esteem, drug addictions and daddy issues. It is true that a lot
of modern porn has become less about sex and more about extreme
acrobatic freak shows, but I still believe very passionately in the
right to produce and enjoy adult entertainment. For every creepy,
impossible three-in-one Viagra-rodeo there are other genuinely sexy,
natural and enthusiastic titles. Something for everybody, I guess. Me,
I like to see people having a good time. If I want to see someone
paying the bills, I'll go watch cashiers ring up groceries in the
supermarket.

HPA: You really worked peep shows?

CF: Sure did. I was part of the famous Show World empire back in the late
eighties. I did that for a few years but as I started getting more and
more into the fetish scene, I got sick of the boring vanilla guys in
the peep booths and so I quit and became a professional Dominatrix.

HPA: Show World?

CF: Show World was the biggest, most famous Times Square peep booth
establishments. They owned a bunch of locations throughout the Deuce.

HPA: Quentin Tarantino once said of you, "Christa Faust is a Veronica in a world of Betties." How did he happen to say that?

CF: The Tarantino quote came about at a party where someone was taking
photos of all the girls and I was the only brunette. He made that
comment about me being a Veronica in a world of Betties and later on
when we were joking about blurbs and how silly they are, I asked if I
could use the Veronica quote on my book. Funny, because I'm now a
blonde so technically that quote no longer applies.

I love finding new authors and getting excited about them. I think this is probably the first woman I've ever read who wrote a truly great hard boiled novel. There's not a single moment of her trying too hard. The book flows organically, scene moving naturally into scene, no extraneous filler, there are moments of almost Chandleresque brilliance. I now want to read everything she's written.

Anyone who comes up with "There was no soap and the rusty, lukewarm water dribbled out of the showerhead like blood from a reluctant suicide. Still, it was better than nothing." deserves my full attention.

And right now, it's only $1.99. (Jan 13, 2012). It's worth it. Spend the two bucks.

Let me be blunt. Don't get sick. Being in the hospital is a terrible thing, they test you, they warehouse you, and the end result is that you will often get mindsick. The staff was professional, but man-o-man, I just wanted to go home. One of the things that kept me from opening a vein with a spork was that I asked my parents to bring me a stack of these Hard Case novels to read between the boredom and the tests.

If anything good came out of it, besides saving my life, and there are those that will argue THAT point, was that it gave me the opportunity to read Christa Faust's original novel "Money Shot". Retired, ex-porn queen Angel Dare is a salty spitfire who has given up acting at the height of her career, and with Didi, her secretary, and girl Friday, run a talent agency for porn stars. Dare has her ego stroked by old friend Sam Hammer, and she decides to make a comeback and make another film with co-star Jesse Black. A near fatal mistake. Dare walks into a trap, and thinking that she knows where some money has been dumped by a friend of one of her actresses, Black ties her up, beats her, tortures her, rapes her, and gets any information that she might have. Black's boss, shoots Hammer, and when Black is done with Dare, Black binds her, dumps her into a car's trunk and takes her out to execute her, and screws it up. He shoots the trunk full of holes, clipping Dare in the progress, and thinking that she is dead, leaves her there. She wakes up after Black has gone and escapes the car and finding a working telephone calls her security escort Lalo Malloy. He comes for her, helps clean her up and together they go on the lam, as she is now wanted by the police and the crooks, and decide to find out what is going on, and to get even.

This isn't Faust's first trip to the rodeo. An experienced hand at writing both horror and hardboiled crime stories, Faust knows her way about the genre. She manages to inject her heroine with all of the grit, determination, intelligence, and anger any writer would give their male protagonists. Knowing the porn industry, Faust walks us through the off-stage parts of the industry, she gives us killer punk bands, porn stars, drug addicts, white slavery, sex, violence, shoot-outs, and really bad fashions, and she does it all with a lack of sleaze, and in a non-sensationalistic matter of factness that a lot of better know writers couldn't even begin to approach. Dare is a tough-as-nails anti-hero with-a-heart-of-brass; the more she's hammered, the tougher and more determined she gets. She and Lalo move from one target to another, and moving up the chain of crooks, leaving each bunch wasted in their wake, the upper crust of the scum are getting nervous while still trying to track down the stolen money.

Dare and Lalo aren't superheroes, only succeeding sometimes by a very thin hair, sheer determination, and by being underestimating by their foes. If there anything that is really wrong with the novel it is the eventual fate of Lalo, but you can't have everything. Faust has enough common sense not pad this lean, tough novel up until the five hundred, or more, page number. She keeps everything moving smoothly, on target, and doesn't deviate with useless inconsequentials, or with useless details, all with more skill than some writers who have been writing twice or three times as long. The title of this review is a quote directly from the book. I haven't read anything else by Faust, and it's been a year since I read this, so I may be a bit vague on some of the details, but this novel has earned every star of this five star review. I feel genuinely sorry for those sad, sad people who can't enjoy or appreciate this novel. And what a hell of a cover.

Christa Faust, Money Shot (Hard Case, 2008)

What do you need to know about Christa Faust other than that she was tabbed to write the novelization of Snakes on a Plane? Well, actually, that might not give her the same cachet in your eyes as it does in mine. (Really, the novelization was great, better than the movie.) But if you do need to know more, she's also the author of Hoodtown, one of the most original novels to crop up in recent years. It was only a matter of time before Hard Case tapped her for a book, and here it is.

Porn star turned entrepreneur Angel Dare has it all; a successful business, a comfortable life, When a friend calls to ask her to shoot a scene for a new video, for old times' sake, because she's been requested by the hottest new star in the business, she's a bit flattered. When she gets there, however, things are not as they seem, and she ends up beaten almost to death, raped, and tied up without clothes in the trunk of a car. Obviously, someone wants her dead. And if she can ever get herself out of this trunk, she and her new security guy might be able to figure out why someone might want her that way.

There are all kinds of strong female detectives out there these days, and a lot of them have jobs other than detective. Most of them are more than willing to get their hands dirty in various ways, but Angel Dare is something new--whereas most of them are inured to all sorts of gore, did you ever notice that the amateur detectives in mystery novels dealing with porn are either (a) male or (b) enmeshed in a novel whose entire reason for being is to say "porn is bad, mmmkay"? (As an example of the first, Louise Welsh's excellent The Cutting Room was the first book to come to mind; you can find any number of examples of the latter. I think every female-detective series has a stamp-out-kiddie-porn novel in it somewhere.) Faust, and through her Angel Dare, actually takes a levelheaded, businesslike approach to the subject matter, which is pretty amazing in itself. There are any number of ways that this novel could have taken a turn into the same old territory, and it never does.

Add to that that Ms. Faust is one helluva writer. Some of us already knew this; hopefully, with a big title on a hot new imprint, a lot more people will find out, as well. ****

The most striking aspect of Christa Faust's Money Shot is the quality of the writing. Faust's intelligent and charged prose works well with the posturing tone of noir and hard-boiled pulp. The blend of fresh-sounding turns of phrases and witty obscenity sketch a fast-flowing plot with chips on both its shoulders. While the noir formula is in full force and obvious, Faust proves that an old genre can turn new tricks, even if the setting is the jaded age of cell phones and the Internet.

I should mention that this is a bloody and brutal book, but there is a purpose beyond bludgeoning the reader. Faust satirizes the porn industry, which is supposed to be a fantasy machine, by placing it in uncomfortably close proximity to the reality of sex slavery. It's refreshing when writers repurpose well-worn genres.

I was a bit dismayed by the number of typographical errors. Some are so glaring that they cripple an entire sentence, halting the novel in its tracks. Despite the lazy proofreading, I heartily recommend this book.

Money Shot appears to be a pretty standard crime novel with a twist, a beleaguered female protagonist who begins the book tied up in the trunk of a car. To a certain degree, that's exactly what it is; a Kill Bill-style story of revenge with a sexy woman as the lead (even though she becomes decidedly un-sexy over the course of the book). Faust keeps mosts of the twists at either end of the book, leaving the middle to build up Angel Dare's character. It gets a little bit slow in places, but it keeps driving you through it even when things get a touch boring.

The book also reveals a very different setting for a crime novel; the porn industry. While most hard-boiled books tread familiar settings like seedy back alleys and shadowy warehouses, Money Shot is set deep in the heart of the porn industry. Over the course of the book, you'll learn a good deal more about the porn industry than you probably would ever want to. Still, the change in scenery and overall setting is a refreshing contrast to most of the other Hard Case books.

Faust's prose is tight and well-done. She creates a very concrete and unique voice for Angel that she keeps consistent for the whole story. Angel's whip-smart, and a great narrator to guide you through the course of the story. Most of the other characters aren't as well fleshed-out as I would have liked, but Angel is interesting enough to keep things lively.

Having been burned by countless 'thrillers/mysteries' written by women, all incredibly well-reviewed by others on Amazon, I put off buying this novel. Seems to me that most of them are little more than romance novels wrapped very loosely in a flimsy whodunit. In hindsight, I realize what an idiot I was in passing on this one for so long. Though I wouldn't characterize the writing as 'gritty', (It is definitely not a comedy, but I found it to be quite funny throughout. A little like Janet Evanovich in parts, but with a much harder edge) this book really has it all as far as crime fiction goes. Raw action, down and dirty sleaze, violence, REALLY bad guys, and a flawed anti-hero in the form of Angel Dare, a porn star in the twilight of her career, pushed to the breaking point and beyond. I don't consider it a spoiler to say that there's no '...and they all lived happily everafter' ending to be found here. Highly recommended to anyone looking for a good book to read over the course of a weekend.