CHOKE HOLD by Christa Faust [2011]

Choke Hold is the follow up to 2008's Money Shot (probably my favorite of the many Hard Case Crime titles I've devoured), in which we met Angel Dare -- an ex-porn star perpetually mixed up in an underworld loaded with shady lowlifes, gruesome violence and rampaging sex. That alone may sound like this is just a piece of hollow trash, but it's anything but. Faust's creation of Angel Dare is nuanced with compelling inner turmoil and surrounded by virtually non-stop action.

(Before I go any further, I implore you to check out Money Shot first; not only will it make this book more enjoyable, it is unquestionably one of the most-fun page-turners I've consumed in the past five years.)

We pick up Angel's life a couple of years after the events of the last novel, and she has been forced by those rascally Croatian sex traffickers to escape her dull witness protection existence in the wake of her testimony against them. While working as waitress to secure a high-quality fake ID in an Arizona diner, one night in walks "Thick" Vic Ventura, an old boyfriend and former co-star, for a meet-up with his long-estranged 18-year-old son. Shortly after Angel and Vic briefly reacquaint themselves, a gaggle of seemingly random punks pour into the diner and litter the joint with bullets. Vic is hit in the mayhem, and Angel and his son, Cody, jet him out of there. She and Cody enlist the help of his washed-up MMA champion and current mentor in the further adventures as they enlist the help of a host on unsavory characters and try to out-run various other murderous thugs, European mobsters and no-good wenches.

This is a bleaker novel than the first, but I don't mean that as a criticism. Gone is the glitzy (at least on the surface) porn world setting of Los Angeles. It's replacement is the underbelly of the mixed martial arts circuit, and the dilapidated Southwest and northern Mexican landscape. Angel is at a lower place throughout this novel than in much of Money Shot, and her surroundings mirror that state. Faust never gives the reader time to pause for long in Choke Hold, as any quiet moments are fastidiously dispensed with by some sort of new and unexpected danger. But those lower-paced scenes give insight to an individual seeped in insecurity and intimacy issues, making lasting relationships hard to come by. By the end, you're left wanting even more Angel Dare. Here's hoping this isn't the last we've seen of her.

By the way, in case you're unaware, Hard Case Crime is a cool publisher that debuted a few years back. Their titles are a mix of reprints of old, often-obscure pulp novels (from people such as  and new releases (like ones from Faust). All are chosen for a reason -- they're really fucking good. However, tough times in the publishing world have led to challenges for the imprint, and they went on hiatus from releasing new books for a while. Choke Hold was among the first released after they had reorganized, and some obvious changes for readers occurred, namely the book is physically larger. Admittedly, I prefer the old mass-market size and format of the books (not to mention the slightly lower cover price), but at least the trade paperback offers a larger display to show off that amazing cover art. All-in-all, they provide a really nice package for a reasonable price. Check out more of them if you dig this one as much as I did.

A Few Words On Cormac McCarthy's BLOOD MERIDIAN

You don't need to take it from me that this Western novel from Cormac McCarthy is a masterpiece - there's plenty of other places online that have made the same claim and with far more veracity since it's publication in 1985 than I will here. I'm merely writing this post to encourage those of you who know nothing of it or do and have yet to embark on it to seek it out. Blood Meridian is without question one of the finest works of art I've ever come across in any medium.

If you've read McCarthy's work before (The Border Trilogy) or watched a film adaptation of one of his novels (No Country For Old Men, The Road), you have an idea of what to expect -- it's a tragic, beautiful, bleak, dense and hauntingly violent story. I've only read two of his novels, but McCarthy's prose has an unique ability to make me feel alive in a way no other author I've been exposed to is able to do. And Blood Meridian accomplishes this feat with far more regularity than when I took on The Road.

Someday I'll re-read this one (something I rarely even consider with most books these days), partly because I'm sure its finer points will have escaped me and also because something this magnificent must be experienced again. I wonder if I'll have a drastically different opinion of it when that time comes, kinda like how some scholars say a 20-year-old will interpret War & Peace vastly differently than a 50-year-old would (and some of those attest that you shouldn't even attempt that one until reaching a more advanced age). I can't imagine at 31 I've read this one too soon, but if I have, it was worth spoiling it.

So, again, I advocate all of you to open this one up. There have been recent rumblings about an attempt to film it, but I frankly don't see how it'd be done effectively, even by the great Nicolas Winding Refn (so says Wikipedia which means it must be true despite lacking a source), let alone that James Franco directorial rumor.

After the jump, my favorite passage from the book. Read at your own choosing.