Money Shot (Christa Faust, 2008)

This is just a pathetic piece-of-shit cheap pulp. Cannot really find a good way to categorise it; maybe calling it something like “hard-boiled sexploitation wanna be” isn’t far from the truth. The story is straightforward – money gets stolen, and a bunch of bad guys chase an innocent girl to get it back. It’s all pretty silly and predictable, but this is (still) not a problem, as we are used to those, and sometimes they do turn out to be okay or at least bearable.

The problematic aspect of Money Shot comes from its sexploitation angle. Its background is the porn industry, and everything in the book is linked to it. Not only the characters, but every single observation, dialogue, situation … The Author assumes that we are all totally fascinated with the dark side of the porn industry, and she portrays it as hell on earth, full of white slavers, where human life isn’t worth a dime. This would probably make sense back in the 70s when porn took off, but I find it hard to believe that these days someone would kill 10+ people for just 100 grand.

It starts as a kind of “innocent and clueless guy gets into a mess” mystery, but it soon completely loses its plot. Our poor heroine is beaten to a pulp, raped, shot and left for dead and yet for some reason she doesn’t contact the police!? And besides such obvious nonsense, we need to accept gaps in our narrator’s story like these: “I have no idea how I got away from the phone, but I did. I also had no idea how Malloy found me, but he did.” So – in short – it quickly turns into a ridiculous thriller where bodies just keep piling up, accompanied by the narrator’s “witty” comments about the porn industry. It ends with another cliché as our Angel manages to save a bunch of women from white slavery…

Characterisation is next to non-existent; we can tell who the good guys (and girls) and bad guys are the moment they are introduced. Writing is simplified to a maximum; I would say that the whole vocabulary consists of a few hundred words. I also had some trouble with its style. It is too masculine, as if Christa Faust is trying to prove that she can write even tougher crime prose than her male colleagues.

I like pulp trash in general, but this one is just too much, really. While reading it, I just couldn’t shake off the feeling that the author wrote it just to sell it to Hollywood and make another one of those Tarantino-esque extravaganzas. Just put together lots of action, sex, violence, killings, snappy dialogues, cheap humour, shady Eastern European characters and … and that’s it really. Story, what story!? A simple revenge plot will do just fine, and there’s no need for a solid story as long as you’ll be able to cast Angelina Jolie for the Angel’s role. 

2/5

Facts:

Hero:
Angel Dare, ex porn star. Now running a "modelling" agency.

Location: 
L.A., pornography capital

Body count: 

14

Dames:
There are a few other porn stars (victims), but our hero is so absorbed in herself that they are hardly relevant.

Cover: 
Completely off target, but this is probably because the book itself is titled totally inappropriately. We all know what a money shot is, and there aren't many of them here. Also, Angel cuts and bleaches her hair right at the beginning... By Glen Orbik.

Blackouts:
She gets knocked out twice and stuffed into a car's trunk.

Cool lines:
I hate malls. They're like strip clubs for women. All tease and sparkle and the empty promise that if you just drop enough cash, somehow you'll be fulfilled. 

Beard. Ponytail. Beer gut. Tattoos. He looked like one of the first three guys the hero has to fight before he can get to the real bad guy.[The Coolest!]