Synopsis
Robin Hudson's life is getting complicated. Her estranged husband's girlfriend is not only younger, prettier, and more successful - she's pregnant. Robin's job - on the trash crew for the prestigious All News Network - is rocky, too. She can't seem to keep from making on-the-air faux pas. Now her loathsome boss wants her to investigate a sperm bank. Her elderly next door neighbor vilifies her and assaults her, under the delusion that she is a call girl. A blackmailer tries to shake her down. And her disdainful cat, Louise Bryant, refuses to eat unless Robin stir fries her food. Just a normal day for a single, urban professional female.
Then this spunky and appealing but "slightly rumpled, third string reporter in Rita Hayworth's body" finds herself accused of murder. She thinks her apartment may have been burglarized because it seems tidier than when she left it. Robin wants to trust charming supervising producer Eric Slansky but is afraid that the super-handsome, super-amorous Super Prod may be the murderer.
This is a fast-paced, funny mystery featuring a sleuth who is a television newswoman.
Reviews
As if third-string reporter Robin Hudson, of New York's All News Network, didn't have enough problems already--her estranged husband's taken up with an on-air twinkie, her sex life is a distant memory, she's seen en route to a staff masquerade party waving a tire iron at her abusive old downstairs neighbor--and now the mysterious caller who insisted she meet him at the party stands her up because he's been killed by a blunt instrument, like maybe a tire iron. Though the police don't take Robin seriously as a suspect, all the ANN higher-ups who aren't busy hitting on her are ready to give her up to protect super-reporter Joanne Armoire when it turns out that the dead guy, a shamus with a file on anybody who's worked with ANN's premier anchor Greg Browner, was interested in Armoire--and in Browner's former producer Susan Brave too. What's the connection, and does it have to involve Robin's perilously young new romantic prospect, Browner producer Eric Slansky? The dialogue reads like a string of Percodan lunches, but Robin's seen-it-all naivet‚ makes this an appealing debut. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
YA?Robin Hudson, "a slightly rumpled, third string reporter...in Rita Hayworth's body," has decided not to go to the All News Network's annual costume party at the Marfeles Palace Hotel. After all, her estranged husband and his successful, young, and pregnant girlfriend are going to be there. A call from a private investigator changes her mind, however, because the detective is investigating her! They plan to meet on the night of the party at the hotel. Robin's last minute costume is simple?a "support your local feminist" button and a tire iron?as she chooses to go as Ginny Foat, a prominent feminist who had been tried for murder. Unfortunately, Robin never meets the PI, but the next day finds herself facing homicide charges. Journalist and stand-up comic Hayter has come up with a wacky, slightly offbeat character sure to appeal to YAs. The clever combination of two favorite genres?humor and mystery?make this book a surefire hit.?Carol Clark, R.E. Lee High School, Springfield, VA
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Hayter, a journalist and stand-up comic, mines what she knows in this well-plotted mystery featuring an off-the-wall amateur sleuth. Robin Hudson, a "third-string correspondent" for TV's All News Network, saves news clippings on murder victims and grows poison ivy in the New York apartment she had shared with her husband, Burke Avery, until Amy Penny, an ANN magazine show co-host, swiped him. Robin observes Burke and Amy billing and cooing at the network's New Year's Eve party at a Manhattan hotel just before a stranger slips her a page from a PI report on herself and suggests she go to room 13D. No one answers at 13D and Robin suspects a prank until news breaks that a PI was bludgeoned to death in that room and that Robin was the last one seen in the area. She begins investigating on her own, while folks around ANN turn edgy: some shared an acquaintance with the PI that was more intimate than congenial. Someone breaks into Robin's apartment, leaving her to relish the one bright spot in her life--the sudden interest of good-looking producer Eric Slansky. Flat-out funny, audacious and a little weird, this debut stakes out territory all its own. For readers who respond to this brand of humor, Hayter's next book can't be published soon enough. 12,000 first printing.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Time runs through this slap-and-tickle first novel in terms of lost jobs and missed deadlines. No sense of impending doom, however, dampens the startling bluntness and acerbic wit of All News Network's inveterate reporter Robin Hudson. Questioned in the murder of a sleazy private eye, she embarks on a quest to find the real murderer. At the same time, she bugs her estranged husband, baits her cohorts, and scoops undercover news stories. A light-hearted, satiric dance set on a New York stage, suitable for all collections.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
While it's tempting to dismiss this book as shallow, callow, and simplistic (all of which it is), it's hard not to like the sheer spunkiness, blatant outrageousness, and unadulterated enthusiasm of the title's refreshing if sometimes unsophisticated author. The story is about TV reporter Robin Hudson, whose life is falling apart--her husband has left her for a younger woman, her network has demoted her because she belched into a "live" microphone at a White House press conference, and someone who knows some disturbing secrets about her past is ready to blackmail her. When the blackmailer turns up dead, Robin is the prime suspect. Of course, she's convinced she can find the real killer if she just uses a combination of her excellent investigative reporting skills, her Epilady, her file on violent murders of the past--and maybe some karate. This is not the most literate mystery (heck, it's not even close), but it's cute and funny and gutsy and entertaining. And, yes, the author's name really is Sparkle--after Sparkle Plenty in Dick Tracy. Emily Melton
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