You’ve always wanted my Money Shot on your tits, and now you can have it! Not to mention all the other gorgeous Hard Case cover t-shirts that are now available, just in time for the upcoming Royal Birthday Month!

My novel MONEY SHOT has been nominated for an Edgar award. Best Paperback Original.

Thanks to everyone who emailed about the news and congrats to all the other nominees!

BEST NOVEL

Missing by Karin Alvtegen (Felony & Mayhem Press)
Blue Heaven by C.J. Box (St. Martin's Minotaur)
Sins of the Assassin by Robert Ferrigno (Simon & Schuster - Scribner)
The Price of Blood by Declan Hughes (HarperCollins – William Morrow)
The Night Following by Morag Joss (Random House – Delacorte Press)
Curse of the Spellmans by Lisa Lutz (Simon & Schuster)

BEST FIRST NOVEL BY AN AMERICAN AUTHOR

The Kind One by Tom Epperson (Five Star, div of Cengage)
Sweetsmoke by David Fuller (Hyperion)
The Foreigner by Francie Lin (Picador)
Calumet City by Charlie Newton (Simon & Schuster - Touchstone)
A Cure for Night by Justin Peacock (Random House - Doubleday)

BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL

The Prince of Bagram by Alex Carr (Random House Trade)
Money Shot by Christa Faust (Hard Case Crime)
Enemy Combatant by Ed Gaffney (Random House - Dell)
China Lake by Meg Gardiner (New American Library – Obsidian Mysteries)
The Cold Spot by Tom Piccirilli (Random House - Bantam)

BEST FACT CRIME

For The Thrill of It: Leopold, Loeb and the Murder that Shocked Chicago by Simon Baatz (HarperCollins)
American Lightning: Terror, Mystery, the Birth of Hollywood, and the Crime of the Century by Howard Blum (Crown Publishers)
Havana Nocturne: How the Mob Owned Cuba and Then Lost It To The Revolution by T.J. English (HarperCollins – William Morrow)
The Man Who Made Vermeers: Unvarnishing the Legend of Master Forger Hans van Meegeren by Jonathan Lopez (Harcourt)
The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher by Kate Summerscale (Walker & Company)

BEST CRITICAL/BIOGRAPHICAL

African American Mystery Writers: A Historical and Thematic Study by Frankie Y. Bailey (McFarland & Company)
Hard-Boiled Sentimentality: The Secret History of American Crime Stories by Leonard Cassuto (Columbia University Press)
Scene of the Crime: The Importance of Place in Crime and Mystery Fiction by David Geherin (McFarland & Company)
The Rise of True Crime by Jean Murley (Greenwood Publishing – Praeger)
Edgar Allan Poe: An Illustrated Companion to His Tell-Tale Stories by Dr. Harry Lee Poe (Sterling Publishing – Metro Books)

BEST SHORT STORY

"A Sleep Not Unlike Death" - Hardcore Hardboiled by Sean Chercover (Kensington Publishing)
"Skin and Bones" – Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine by David Edgerley Gates (Dell Magazines)
"Scratch of a Woman" - Hardly Knew Her by Laura Lippman (HarperCollins – William Morrow)
"La Vie en Rose" - Paris Noir by Dominique Mainard (Akashic Books
"Skinhead Central" - The Blue Religion by T. Jefferson Parker (Hachette Book Group – Little, Brown and Company)

BEST JUVENILE

The Postcard by Tony Abbott (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)
Enigma: A Magical Mystery by Graeme Base (Abrams Books for Young Readers)
Eleven by Patricia Reilly Giff (Random House Children's Books – Wendy Lamb Books)
The Witches of Dredmoore Hollow by Riford McKenzie (Marshall Cavendish Children's Books)
Cemetary Street by Brenda Seabrooke (Holiday House)

BEST YOUNG ADULT

Bog Child by Siobhan Dowd (Random House Children's Books – David Fickling Books)
The Big Splash by Jack D. Ferraiolo (Harry N. Abrams Books – Amulet Books)
Paper Towns by John Green (Penguin Young Readers Group – Dutton Children's Books)
Getting the Girl by Susan Juby (HarperCollins Children's Books - HarperTeen)
Torn to Pieces by Margo McDonnell (Random House Children's Books – Delacorte Books for Young Readers)

BEST PLAY

The Ballad of Emmett Till by Ifa Bayeza (Goodman Theatre, Chicago, IL)
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde adapted by Jeffrey Hatcher, based on the story by Robert Lewis Stevenson (Arizona Theatre Company)
Cell by Judy Klass (International Mystery Writers' Festival)

BEST TELEVISION EPISODE TELEPLAY

"Streetwise" – Law & Order: SVU, Teleplay by Paul Grellong (Wolf Films/NBC Universal)
"Prayer of the Bone" – Wire in the Blood, Teleplay by Patrick Harbinson (BBC America)
"Signature" – Law & Order: SVU, Teleplay by Judith McCreary (Wolf Films/NBC Universal)
"You May Now Kill the Bride" – CSI: Miami, Teleplay by Barry O'Brien (CBS)
"Burn Card" – Law & Order, Teleplay by David Wilcox (Wolf Films/NBC Universal)

BEST MOTION PICTURE SCREENPLAY

The Bank Job, Screenplay by Dick Clement & Ian La Frenais (Lionsgate)
Burn After Reading, Screenplay by Joel Coen & Ethan Coen (Focus Features)
In Bruges, Screenplay by Martin McDonagh (Focus Features)
Tell No One, Screenplay by Guillaume Canet, based on the book by Harlan Coben (Music Box Films)
Transsiberian, Screenplay by Brad Anderson & Will Conroy (First Look International)

ROBERT L. FISH MEMORIAL AWARD

"Buckner's Error" - Queens Noir by Joseph Guglielmelli (Akashic Books)

GRAND MASTERS

James Lee Burke
Sue Grafton

RAVEN AWARDS

Edgar Allan Poe Society, Baltimore, Maryland
Poe House, Baltimore, Maryland

THE SIMON & SCHUSTER - MARY HIGGINS CLARK AWARD

Sacrifice by S.J. Bolton (St. Martin's Minotaur)
The Killer's Wife by Bill Floyd (St. Martin's Minotaur)
Stalking Susan by Julie Kramer (Random House - Doubleday)
A Song for You by Betsy Thornton (St. Martin's Minotaur)
The Fault Tree by Louise Ure (St. Martin's Minotaur)

… but you can’t take the peep booth out of the publicity surrounding her new novel. Well, ink is ink and there sure is a lot of buzz about MONEY SHOT so I can’t really complain.

So, in the spirit of living up to my ex-Times Square stripper image, I’m getting platinum blonde hair extensions. My friend, longtime hair-wrangler and mad beauty scientist Leala is starting a new business and asked me to be a “before and after” model for her website. I’m always up for hair experiments of all kinds, so I’m really looking forward to it. I’m also looking forward to having enough hair to set on rollers.

In other news, I have a ton of signings and readings coming up over the next couple of months. I’ll be posting a full schedule within the next few days and will also be bloging on the tour as much as I’m able.

My Christmas present to myself this year was a storage space. Doesn’t sound very festive, but I gotta tell you it’s really the best present ever. See, my house is so tiny that three books, two DVDs and a pair of shoes with no place to go equals unmanageable clutter. The only way to make this place function is to have everything stripped down, ferociously organized and completely clutter-free. For a voracious reader with a vintage shoe fetish, this can be a serious problem.

So over the last five days I’ve been boxing up girdles and hats and shoes and books and toys and assorted ephemera and hauling it over the storage space. I now have an actual to-be-read shelf, rather than the leaning tower of books pictured in that pre-Christmas entry. I made room on the Film Noir shelf for the new Warner Brothers boxed set I got for Christmas, which includes Act of Violence and the amazingly demented Decoy (which you really need to see if you haven’t already.) I have one of those nifty covered clothing racks in the storage space to hold all the vintage suits and gowns that were previously smashed into my single way-too-small closet. My kitchen is no longer doing double duty as a storage area so I have actual space to cook like a grown up again. It’s not quite as good as having a real house to live in, but it’s pretty damn close.

I’m not gonna do a year end wrap up or top ten list or anything like that. I’m too excited about 2008. I’ve got MONEY SHOT coming, plus I’m currently hard at work on a top secret project that I hope will knock all your dicks in the dirt once I make it get up and walk.

So thanks to everyone who sent me stockings and chocolate and special thanks to luchaninjakeith for providing the soundtrack to my five days of hard labor. Stay safe out there tonight and watch out for stray bullets.

The MONEY SHOT trailer is finally finished and will debut on YouTube tonight, December 3rd at 9pm Eastern/6pm Pacific.

Well the MONEY SHOT trailer is finally in the bag. Roxy flaked on me so I had to find a new model and reschedule but amazingly I was actually able to pull it off last night. I shot the whole thing in a friend’s garage for five cents, with a home made lighting kit and sets made from spit and string. Props to my amazing DIY crew: my shooter Charles, my armorer and stunt hand Adam, the endlessly patient Janet for craft services and letting us use her bathroom and of course my live-action Angel, Maire, for being reliable, professional and thoroughly bad-ass.

Of course, the really hard part is yet to come. Now I have to edit the raw footage down to a crackerjack 30 seconds.

Meanwhile, you can check out some very blurry behind the scenes photos on Flickr.

I’ve spent the past nine days in a hell of apartment hunting for my pop. We’ve been encountering a lot of what I refer to as the “California no.” Instead of just saying no, Californians simply hide and refuse to return phone calls. I would much rather deal with a fellow New Yorker who tells me to go fuck myself than deal with these non-confrontational California chickenshits. Out of the, say, 50 listings we’ve called on, we heard back from less than a quarter.

The other baffling thing I’ve been dealing with is the “pet friendly” issue. My dad has two extremely shy cats. They’re like ghosts, you never really see them. You only catch an occasional glimpse out of the corner of your eye. They don’t scratch or spray. All in all they are excellent tenants. But we have now had three separate people (who listed their property as pet friendly) ask “how big” the cats are. How big? What do you mean how big? They’re cats, not lions. Unlike dogs, adult cats are all pretty much the same basic size give or take a few pounds of belly. So what, if the cats are too fat you won’t rent to him? Wouldn’t fat lazy cats make better tenants than small, rambunctious kittens?

In MONEY SHOT news, I got a gossip column nod in the New York Post, on page six.

So, I’ve finally risen from my bed of pain. It’s been too damn long since my last post. For starters, thanks to all the big booty ladies who offered to nurse me. Sadly, I have simply not been fit for polite (or otherwise) company. I do hope you’ll all come out and represent at my big book release bash at the Mystery Bookstore in Westwood on February 3rd. I also hope that by then I will no longer be lithsping like someone’s teenaged babysitter with brand new braces.

I do want to say that “tissue harvesting” really sucks. It’s especially nasty because even though you’re numb, you can still feel the little hook-shaped scalpel sawing and peeling loose this wet flag of meat off the roof of your mouth. Of course the part where they snip the flag into patches and sew the patches over the big gaping holes full of grits made from dead people’s bones is no fucking picnic either. Never mind the fact that my system burns through Novocain in record time. In a word, ouch.

But enough torture porn. On to things that really matter.

My sort-of book tour for MONEY SHOT is really starting to shape up. There’ll be events in New York, LA, Seattle, Portland, Houston and hopefully New Orleans. I’ll also be doing some signings in late November for the forthcoming anthology HELL OF A WOMAN, edited by Megan Abbott. I’ll post all the dates as soon as I can,

And speaking of Megan Abbott and big booty ladies, looks like the bootylicious Jessica Biel will be starring in a screen adaptation of Megan’s DIE A LITTLE. It also looks like they’ll be rewriting the story in a modern setting. I find that kind of hard to picture, but hey, I’m still intrigued.

The bed of pain is calling….

I hit my deadline, but there hasn’t been much time to relax since Tuesday. Here’s a quick overview.

First of all, I had to cancel my book trailer shoot over the weekend because the owner of the location was stuck behind the flaming truck pile up on the 5 freeway. I’m in the process of rescheduling but it looks like it won’t be until the second week of November at the earliest.

I did an interview for Publishers Weekly yesterday. I felt pretty good about the written half but always feel a little less confident of phone interviews. I’m always sure that I’m babbling incoherently, but the gal conducting the interview was pretty friendly and informal so I’m probably just being too hard on myself as usual. I don’t know when they'll run it, but when I find out, you guys will be the first to know.

I’m getting implants on Monday. Three of them! No, not breast implants, tooth implants. From what I understand, I won’t be getting the new teeth right away, because they need to do some bone grafting (!) that needs time to heal first. Regardless, I loathe going to the dentist for any reason and this will be all kinds of no fun. I will be stocking up on ice cream, soup, and vintage monster movies. Any hot, chubby girls out there want to squeeze into a latex nurse costume and come over to take care of me? Required duties will mostly consist of bending over to pick things up.

Then, the following week I will be flying back home to NYC to help my dad get squared away to move out to LA. The house is sold and ready to close and all that’s left is clearing out the last of the junk, packing him up and dealing with his two scaredy cats who need to be caught (they are way too shy to pick up, let alone put voluntarily into crates) vetted and shipped to my vet out here for boarding while my dad scores a new pad.

Also, at some point during all this madness, I’m hoping to score another work-for-hire gig and oh yeah, maybe actually find time to work on something real. Imagine that.

I just received a box of MONEY SHOT advanced reading copies. Man are they pretty! I can’t get over seeing that Richard Prather blurb in actual print. (Is he really talking about me?!?) To be honest, it never seemed real until now.

I spent some time today scoping out my location for the book trailer and messing around with lights. I’m hardly any kind of cinematographer, so I wanted time to experiment and test my ideas and make mistakes before I actually have Roxy on set. I’m hoping that way, when it comes time to shoot the real deal maybe I’ll have a little bit more of a clue.

Inspired by Gonzaga’s lovely broken nose from last night’s UFC, I’ve been considering bloodying Roxy up a bit when I toss her in the trunk. In MONEY SHOT, Angel does have a broken nose at that point in the story, but again, I’m going for more of the flavor of the story than a literal representation of the events. Jury’s still out. Thoughts, anyone?

In other totally unrelated news, this cracks me up!

OK, I really need this! I love that they did both the earlier, suave classic Wentworth version and the more demented, fanged later version.

Meanwhile I’ve suddenly got galleys aplenty here at the House of Faust. Galleys for MONEY SHOT and for HELL OF A WOMAN, the new antho from Busted Flush, are both awaiting my attention, plus I’ve got my latest ghostwriting project to contend with. Naturally now is the perfect time to be surfing the web lusting after toys I can’t afford.

Of course, if I had gone to San Diego Comic Con, not only would I have been able to pick up my Scribe award in person, but I also could have scored one of these super cool Spider rings

Do you look like this?



Know someone who does?

The hunt is on. I’m looking for a model/actress to play Angel Dare in the book trailer I will be shooting for MONEY SHOT. If you’re LA local and interested in being a star (for thirty seconds), check out my craigslist ad for more details.

When I first started thinking about this project, I really wanted to cast the stunning Aria Giovanni in this role, but thus far, my attempts to contact her have been unsuccessful. (Aria, if you’re bored and googling yourself and stumble across this post, email me at faust at christafaust dot com!)

Anyway, I’m really looking forward to this.

Click here to get a sneak peek at the first two chapters of MONEY SHOT.