Rating: 5 stars (Spotlight Review)
Former porn star Angel Dare wakes up in the trunk of a Honda Civic. She has been beaten, raped, shot twice and left for dead. Upon freeing herself, she gets ahold of Malloy, the bodyguard for the girls working for the porn talent agency Angel runs, and begins piecing together what happened to her and why.
It turns out Angel had been contacted to make one last film, which was in fact a set-up by several employees of the porn industry to interrogate her about a missing briefcase. Malloy informs Angel that she has been framed for the murder of Sam Hammer, fellow porn star and friend of twenty years, and that the cops are watching her house and business and are on the lookout for her. Left with no other alternatives, Angel tries to find out who set her up and why, as well as find that mysterious briefcase.
If all of Christa Faust's hard-boiled novels are as good as Money Shot, then I'm pleased to say the genre has a new fan. The book is non-stop for the first hundred pages, slows down for a few chapters to expound a bit on plot and characters, then races breakneck to the finish line the rest of the novel. From emergency medical care in a dominatrix parlor, to Las Vegas strip clubs and high-speed car chases, Faust's terse sentences and unbelievably cunning use of analogies serve to keep Angel's angst and anger at a low boil the entire time. And when a porn star is pissed off and armed, the winner is always the reader.
Speaking of the porn, it's evident that a lot of research into the industry went into Money Shot to make the characters and scenarios realistic. Faust also has a brilliant habit of mixing actual porn names and titles with the ones she's created to blur the lines of reality, yet treats the subject matter with nothing but respect the entire time. There's no distaste for her own material here and it makes what could have easily been a joke novel (especially with the cheesy tag line, "They thought she'd be easy. They thought wrong.") a solid read. In the hands of a less serious author this would've been a trainwreck of a book, but there's nothing but a good novel to be found between these covers.
Bottom line: it's short, it's badass and it's tastefully and professionally done. It's a guaranteed good time that knows better than to overstay its welcome. Trust that as I await Christa Faust's next novel, I'll be dedicating some time to tracking down her back catalog.
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Mass Market Paperback: 224 pages
Publisher: Hard Crime Case (January 29, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0843959584
ISBN-13: 978-0843959581