Hoodtown, a pulp noir crime novel by Christa Faust, takes place in an alternate reality Los Angeles in which there exists a ghetto of masked secondary citizens whose culture is based on lucha libre, the dramatic sport of Mexican masked wrestling. In the barrio gruesome murders are being committed: a sadistic killer dubbed the Hoodtown Ripper is killing and unmasking the chicas of Hoodtown. And the only person who can put the pieces together is a washed-up ex-luchadora named X. Quite frankly, Hoodtown is an amazingly quick and vivid read. The chapters are short and the action flows in a steady, staccato rhythm. This is a story that is all too easy to get sucked into. The crime intrigue mixed with the retro thrills of lucha libre are near irresistible. It doesn’t hurt that Faust is an absolute powerhouse of a writer; X’s voice comes through loud and clear in the the narration of the story. Also, despite having a slightly lowbrow veneer, Hoodtown is a remarkably clever novel. Faust uses the idea of a masked underclass to slyly comment on discrimination and prejudice in a larger sense than is directly addressed by the novel itself. (And if the fates of the unmasked prostitutes aren’t a stylized allusion to the nature of sex crimes in the real world…) In short, Hoodtown is a full-on martinete on cold concrete. You should be reading this right now.

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