Like a Dime Novel--or Pulp Fiction?

KEITH BRADSHER writes, Taiwan Police Say Who Shot President, but Suspect Is Dead

Spinning the sort of story once found in dime store novels, the police said in Taipei that a middle-aged man had carried out the shooting on March 19 because he was depressed about difficulties in selling a house and blamed the president's management of Taiwan's struggling economy.

By "dime store novels" he must mean dime novel, which refers to a "melodramatic novel of romance or adventure", a genre the Cambridge history of English and American literature describes as written by "fertile hacks":

Cheap, conventional, hasty...they were exciting, innocent enough, and scrupulously devoted to the doctrines of poetic justice, but they lacked all distinction....

And "spinning"? Together with "dime store novels", this suggests he shares the opposition's skepticism. As Channel NewsAsia's Taiwan Bureau Chief Young Ming writes, "the latest finding remains highly controversial."

Update
The Taiwan government doesn't like the tone. Taiwan government angry over Times report language:

Taiwan may seek an apology from the New York Times over an article about the investigation into the shooting of president Chen last March. Reports say the government is furious over the language used by a Times reporter in describing the police findings in the case. Times reporter called the findings "the sort of story once spun in dime store novels." Premier Frank Hsieh frowned at the report, accusing the Times of not knowing the full picture.

Meanwhile, the International Herald Tribune version rephrases Bradsher's article, reading,

Presenting a sequence of events worthy of a pulp crime novel, the police in Taipei said that a balding man, Chen Yi-hsiung, had carried out the shooting because he had been depressed about difficulties in selling a house and blamed the president's management of Taiwan's struggling economy. While the police did not give his age, Taiwanese media reported that he was 63.

陳義雄's being bald is significant:

The police said that the alleged assailant, who was not related to the president, was the mysterious balding man in a yellow jacket who could be seen in a video taped at the time of the attack. While the video did not show anyone firing shots, the police released the video several days after the attack and asked the public's help in identifying the man.

The omission of "spinning" doesn't seem quite so critical of the police, but pulp still seems a little strong, unless one presents the other dubious circumstances surrounding the shooting. As for "dime novel", it sounds awfully old-fashioned (and "dime store novel" is just plain wrong), so if you're going to go that direction, I agree with the "pulp" designation, although it has a lot of unfortunate cinematic associations.