Chokehold -- Christa Faust

At the end of Money Shot, Angel Dare was on the run. At the beginning of Choke Hold, she's on the run again, having left the witness protection program when the people who want her dead caught up with her. Now she's working in a diner in the middle of nowhere, when in walks her old lover, Thick Vic Ventura. Also in the diner, though Angel hadn't known it, is Vic's son, Cody. Vic is there to try to set things right with the kid. It doesn't work out, and within minutes Vic is dead, having extracted a promise from Angel that she'll take care of his son. It's a promise that Angel regrets having made almost immediately, but a promise is a promise and a hardboiled dame's gotta do what a hardboiled dame's gotta to.

So Angel's on the run again, from the people who wanted her dead in the first place and from a bunch of killers who're after Cody, who happens to be a MMA fighter. The action never lets up, there's sex, and anyone can die at any time. If you think Ken Bruen's Jack Taylor gets run through the emotional wringer more than anybody, consider Angel Dare.

This is another sure winner from Faust and Hard Case Crime. Check it out.