Christa Faust - Money Shot
I was starting to grasp just how meticulously and thoroughly I had been fucked. [ā¦.] I'd done all the begging I was going to do the night before, so I just kept my mouth shut and waited for his answer. - Christa Faust, Money Shot
After developing an interest in 1960s sleaze novels recently, I haven't had much chance to entertain it. I've read a couple of the older books as I mentioned in my previous blog post, but what I've really been hoping to find are some examples of people writing this stuff with more modern sensibilities. Part of the reason is that I want to write some of my own, and I always feel like itās important to be familiar with the genre youāre writing in, but the bigger part of the reason is just that I think this stuff is fun and want to read more of it.
A week or so ago, Oliver from New Edge Sword & Sorcery pointed me in the direction of Krista Faustās Money Shot, published by Hard Case Crime. I'm passingly familiar with Hard Case Crime, having read a couple of their books years ago - mainly Stephen King's additions to the line. If memories serves, it was Joyland that first made me aware of Hard Case, and that remains my favourite King novel to this day. (I wish heād write more books like that instead of whatever Fairy Tale was, but I digress). I've always been drawn to the aesthetic of their books and the tone of their marketing, but despite reading a lot of crime, I haven't really dug in to the catalogue.
Today I made a start on fixing that and sat down to read Money Shot. The pitch is that an aging1 retired porn star gets caught up in a situation way beyond her control and understanding, and things continue to get progressively worse for her. Hereās the quick blurb from the back of the book:
It all began with the phone call asking former porn star Angel Dare to do one more movie. Before she knew it, sheād been shot and left for dead in the trunk of a car. But Angel is a survivor. And that means sheāll get to the bottom of whatās been done to her even if she has to leave a trail of bodies along the wayā¦
I should make it clear that this wasn't recommended to me as āa modern sleaze novelā. Instead I was asked, ādo you think this might be what you're looking for?ā. And on the surface it very much looked like what I was looking for, though now that Iāve read it the reality is that itās only sort of what Iām after. Donāt take that as a criticism: this is really, really good, itās just not the sort of modern sleaze Iām hunting for.
Late 30s isnāt āagingā of course - I tell myself this because Iām in my late 30s - but in the context of porn I suppose it make complete sense to describe her in that way.↩