The Hustled
David Sutter
Author of The Hustled — storyteller, strategist, and voice of the underground economy.
The Man Behind The Hustled
David Sutter
Author · The Hustled
"The underground economy isn't a fringe story. It's the spine of the American experience for millions of people who never made it onto the cover of Forbes. That's the story I needed to tell."
David Sutter is a pool aficianado turned novelist whose work sits at the intersection of crime, commerce, and American ambition. His debut novel, The Hustled, is drawn from years of field research into the underground economies that sustain millions of Americans operating outside the formal marketplace.
A writer who has embedded himself in the worlds he documents, Sutter brings the precision of pool to literary fiction — every character grounded in a real voice, every scene rooted in a real place. The result is a novel that reads with the urgency of a breaking investigation and the emotional weight of the best American storytelling.
12+
Years Investigative Journalism
3
Years Researching The Hustled
12
States Field-Researched
100s
Hours of Source Interviews
Origins
The story of The Hustled didn't begin on a typewriter or in a Hollywood studio—it began in 1966 on the green felt of a newly opened Kansas pool hall. At thirteen years old, the author lowered a cue stick, struck the cue ball, and felt an instant, magnetic obsession. Like Cav, the relentless pool prodigy at the heart of The Hustled, he played endlessly, honing his craft shot by shot.
By the 1970s, that same drive propelled him from the Midwest to the high-octane concrete jungle of Los Angeles. Starting at the absolute bottom, he built his way up to owning a successful furniture business by the 1980s. Amidst the hustle of LA, he sought high-stakes inspiration abroad—soaking in the tropical intensity of Bali and the electric, pulsing streets of Rio de Janeiro during Carnival, a setting that would decades later become the explosive backdrop for The Hustled.
After expanding his business to the Bay Area and pushing at breakneck speed, a trusted colleague offered a piece of advice that changed everything: "Why don't you stop and smell the roses? You've worked hard—go enjoy it." Heeding the call, he sold his business and spent two years traveling across Australia and New Zealand, trading the boardroom for fast Italian sports cars, international sights, and open roads.
Yet, pool was never far from his blood.
The Writing Journey
In 1993, back in Los Angeles, he walked into the legendary 9-ball tournament at The Bicycle Club ("The Bike"). Standing feet away from pool icons—Efren Reyes, Francisco Bustamante, Earl "The Pearl" Strickland, Johnny Archer, and Buddy Hall—the spark reignited into a roar. The game took on a deeper, almost mystical purpose.
Not even the catastrophic 1994 Northridge earthquake—which struck LA like a neutron bomb—could shatter that creative focus. Following a return to Kansas City and a pivotal personal reset in Los Angeles in 2017, years of latent story ideas detonated into a feverish creative breakthrough. Locked in a room, his imagination exploded onto the page, in 45 days producing nearly 300 pages of raw, electric dialogue in a single burst.
Over the next two years, he meticulously sculpted that raw energy into a tight, 90-minute feature screenplay. Refined through more than 25 revisions into a master-crafted 160-page cinematic script and companion novel, The Hustled was born.
Today, with the novel, audiobook, and feature screenplay fully realized, his singular, unshakeable mission remains clear: GET THE DAMN FILM DONE.
For Film & Industry
The Hustled is written with the screen in mind. Sutter brings to his fiction the structural thinking of a documentary filmmaker — scene-by-scene propulsion, cinematic imagery, and dialogue engineered for performance. The book has been optioned and pitched to several production companies, and Sutter maintains an active role in guiding the adaptation process. He is available to consult with producers, meet with studio development teams, and participate in screenplay discussions. The source material is rich, rights are available, and the author is an engaged creative partner.
"Three years. Twelve states. Hundreds of sources. One story."
— The Research Behind The Hustled
For Readers
Discover the novel that started it all. Read sample chapters, explore the audiobook edition, or order your copy of The Hustled today.
For Film & Industry
David Sutter is available to meet with producers, studios, and development teams. Review the screenplay pitch or inquire about acquiring film rights to The Hustled.