“Money Shot”: A Hard-Boiled Porn Thriller

As Angel Dare begins bringing down vengeance on the people who raped and nearly murdered her, the porn star-turned-adult talent agency owner entertains second thoughts. But she gets over them in a hurry. The character created by author Christa Faust in "Money Shot" moves in a spot-on depiction of Porn Valley, the truest mainstream media picture we've seen in a book that combines Joseph Wambaugh's procedural efficiency with Richard S. Prather's gutpunching deadpan.

Read more about "Money Shot" after the gap.

"It's tough to imagine characters like Marlowe, Spade or even (Prather's) Shell Scott as cocksure immortal 18-year-olds," said Faust, whose Dare is a retired performer and a happy porntepreneur at the beginning of "Money Shot." Then things start going wrong. On the trail of an escaped prostitute/slave, some Eastern bloc baddies abduct and beat Dare, leaving her for dead in the back of a Civic. "Money Shot" is the story of her road to recovery and retribution.

Faust herself is a veteran fetish performer and filmmaker, and the snapshots she provides of porn personalities are vivid ones, from the chummy dysfunctional family porners can create once a certain amount of self-destructive behavior passes out of the system. We meet Dare as self-actualized as she probably thinks she can get at the beginning of the book, but it's her doubts - all of which are validated by the end - that make "Money Shot" such a compelling read.

"Too often, women who feature in adult videos are viewed as having hit rock bottom," Faust said. "I wanted Angel to be at the top of her game, smart, savvy and satisfied with the career she created for herself." Sadly, it's the trust she puts in men that inevitably proves unfounded. Flawed bastards.

"Money Shot" was released by New York-based publisher Hard Case Crime, and its books are perfect pocket-sized subway reads with satisfyingly lurid covers. (As the porn world is a fixture in a forgotten Los Angeles, so is its subway. People really do read there.)

· Christa Faust (christafaust.com)
· Wicked Pictures (hardcasecrime.com)
· Buy "Money Shot" (dorchesterpub.com)