To the Mattresses Week 46 - Hard Case Crime Near Casualty

We dodged a bullet with this one.

I've been a member of the Hard Case Crime Book Club for a few years now, and when Dorchester Publishing decided to pull the plug on the line I was rather disappointed.  My mailbox would certainly feel empty without that monthly delivery of both classic and new crime novels.  I'm certainly capable of choosing my own reading choices, but there was just something special about getting that unknown book picked out for me.  Without the club I would have never discovered an author such as Christ Faust, and her novel Money Shot.

THEY THOUGHT SHE’D BE EASY. THEY THOUGHT WRONG. It all began with the phone call asking former porn star Angel Dare to do one more movie. Before she knew it, she’d been shot and left for dead in the trunk of a car. But Angel is a survivor. And that means she’ll get to the bottom of what’s been done to her even if she has to leave a trail of bodies along the way…

Money Shot is one of my favorite books of the past few years, and you can bet money that I will be rereading it shortly.

See, there was a planned sequel, and it was supposed to come out this month from the now defunct club.  Not only was I being robbed of a monthly pleasure, but now they were taking away a book I was really looking forward to.

Well, Titan Books came to the rescue and next year that book, Choke Hold, will be published.

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-star is murdered, 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...


As I wait for that to come out, I think I might have to give another book of hers a shot.

LIKE CASABLANCA, WITH MEXICAN WRESTLING MASKS…Hoodtown, a lucha libre ghetto where the family ‘gimmick’ is sacred above all and the mask is the sole expression of one’s identity. ‘Hood’ prostitutes are turning up murdered and worse, unmasked, and the ‘Skin’ establishment is as much help as a paid-off referee. Enter X, former luchadora with a bruised past, a bum knee and no time to play Santo. She’s no hero, but there’s no one else to tag-in, as her hunt for a killer uncovers a conspiracy that could take down all of maskedkind.