When Simeon Grist is hired by a recording company to trail suspected embezzler Sally Oldfield, he discovers she's involved in something far more lucrative than CDs—namely, a multi-million-dollar religious scam. And Grist's snooping makes him a prime target for hell ...

Book by Hallinan, Timothy

Hired to keep Toby Vane, prime-time's number one leading man, out of trouble, Simeon Grist is certain the job will be a piece of cake—that is, until Vane is framed for the murder of a nude dancer.

On the trail of "the Crisper"—a criminal who douses homeless men with gasoline as they sleep on the streets and then sets them on fire—Simeon Grist becomes the Crisper's reluctant Father Confessor. 35,000 first printing. $25,000 ad/promo.

Raging underneath the high-profile headline crimes that throw a community into uproar are the back-alley wars that really control the pulse of a city. In his latest adventure, Simeon Grist, with his hard edge and sharp wit, takes up his own battle with a set of criminals who are the scourge of the Los Angeles streets: the powerful Asian underground. When a good friend's two young children become the targets of a Chinatown kidnapping, Simeon is drawn into a culture that is almost impenetrable - and incomprehensible - to outsiders. Fearing a crueler reprisal by the forces that took their little girl and boy, even the parents refuse to inform the police. This is a world that defies the criminal justice system and offers only one way to strike back - through vigilante revenge. An unidentified dead body left at the scene convinces Simeon that he has even more on his hands than a kidnapping, especially when faced with the unwanted attention of two Vietnamese guns-for-hire. To get to the bottom of this seedy criminal network that's leaving its mark all over town, Simeon plunges himself into the bloody nightmare that is everyday business in the grisly streets of L.A. But the usual savagery takes an even gorier turn when he discovers a new item in the Chinese black market - the sale of recent immigrants into slavery - bringing Simeon face to face with an inhuman brute who will stop at nothing to silence his enemies. Racing against time to prevent this murderous thug from victimizing more immigrants and killing anyone who gets in his way, Simeon takes on the Asian underground by stabbing at their one Achilles heel - by using their own people against them.

In this next entry in Timothy Hallinan's highly praised series, private investigator Simeon Grist trails a serial killer whose methods appear to be based on an ancient Chinese legend.

Simeon Grist has been out of print for 20 years, and he's pissed off. his few remaining readers are being murdered . . . . . . and there's this girl. “A triumph of imagination.” – Edgar winner Bruce DeSilva —————————— Back in the 1990s, award-winning author Timothy Hallinan wrote six highly-praised private eye novels featuring a Topanga Canyon slacker named Simeon Grist. They didn't sell. And now, the last unsold copy of the last book in that series has been pulped to make cheap newsprint, and Simeon finds himself somewhere neither he nor his writer could ever in a limbo for unsuccessful fictional detectives. He's aware for the first time that he's not real, that someone else thought up his life. And down there in the “real world,” someone is killing his readers . . . and he might be falling in love with a nonfictional girl. What's a guy supposed to do? “The Crime-Writing Hall of Fame needs to build Tim Hallinan his own entire wing.”—Edgar winner Lou Berney, "Pulped is brilliant, funny, and oh so satisfying! It’s the kind of thing other authors wished they’d thought up.”—Brett Battles, Barry Award-winning and USA Today bestselling author “With Pulped, it’s now the Crime-Writing Hall of Fame needs to build Tim Hallinan his own entire wing.”—Lou Berney, Edgar Award-winning author of The Long and Faraway Gone “A Möbius strip of a romp . . . a real mystery solved by a fictional detective...no, wait, a fictional mystery solved by a doubly fictional detective...oh never mind, just read the book.”—Lisa Brackmann, author of Rock Paper Tiger and Go-Between “ . . . a tour de . . .you won't read anything like it again this year. Or probably ever.”—Bill Crider, Anthony Award-winning author of more than sixty novels, including the Sheriff Dan Rhodes series “Pulped is . . . a triumph of imagination told in prose as precise as a sniper's rifle by a novelist with the soul of a poet.” —Bruce DeSilva, Edgar Award-winning author of the Mulligan crime novels including The Dead Line “The most imaginative, quirky, and fun book I’ve read in a very long time. If you’ve ever wondered what happens to your favorite story characters after you put the book away . . . read Pulped. I loved every bit it.” —Wendy Hornsby, Edgar Award-winning author of Disturbing the Dark “ . . . a dazzler––a magnificent riff on writer and reader, fate and will, the imagined and the real . . . Worlds within worlds. Existential crags. Capes. Boredom. Fear. A hawk. Abysses. A not-very-jolly green giant. Wry takedowns of literary pretense, and lump-in-your-throat moments of deep sweetness. Pulped is a triumph.”—Jo Perry, author of Dead is Better and Dead is Best “ . . . a fiendishly clever tour de force. Fiction meets reality in a tale that is by turns astonishing, thought-provoking, and hilarious. In other words, vintage Hallinan.”―Terry Shames, author of An Unsettling Crime for Samuel Craddock “. . . sheer genius. Hallinan creates a novel world that has you thinking Haruki Murakami, and looking at reading in an entirely new light. An instant classic.” —Jeffrey Siger, Barry and Lefty nominated best selling author of the Andreas Kaldis series "Hallinan has combined wit and whimsy into a remarkable mystery novel. After you've read PULPED you'll be hoping he keeps on writing about Simeon Grist―for a variety of reasons!" —Michael Stanley, author of the award winning Detective Kubu mysteries "A fascinating premise with flawless execution. Pulped is hallmark Hallinan, with humor, hubris, and heart.” —Tim Tigner, international bestselling author of Pushing Brilliance