Skin Deep

The Simeon Grist private-eye novels by 2011 Edgar and Macavity Award nominee Timothy Hallinan have become cult favorites, and here is the one that started it all.

For a fee so big he can’t turn it down, Simeon Grist is hired to watchdog the kind of guy he’d usually prefer to throw through the nearest window. Toby Vane is the golden boy of prime-time television, whose gee-whiz smile and chiseled features mask a dark secret that would take the shine off for his millions of adoring female fans: every now and then he beats up a woman, and almost any woman will do. When some of the women around Toby begin to turn up dead, Simeon has to figure out whether he’s protecting a murderer—or whether one of Toby’s multitude of enemies wants to put him away forever. And when Simeon meets the beautiful Nana, the whole situation becomes very personal, very fast.