Customer Reviews

What's A Girl Gotta Do? (Robin Hudson, Book 1)

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Hayter is a great writer. Robin, her fictional heroine, sizes up people and situations with lightning speed and acerbic wit. I would pay her to hang out at my office and write about what she sees.

The book is a mystery, but I didn't notice. I was more interested in listening to Robin get herself in trouble with her superiors, insult her detractors and describe the overall state of her disheveled life.

I imagine Hayter can do well in most genres, both fiction and non-fiction.

Robin Hudson is a news reporter with a career on the fall. It seems that whenever she gets a break, she proceeds to embaress herself and the prestigious broadcasting company she works for. Like the time she was given the job of temporary White House correspondant and beched while standing under a super sensitive microphone at a press conference. After this disgrace, she was placed on the networks cash-cow, the Special Reports division, only to find out her husband was cheating on her with a 23 year old.

Robin's frank outlook on her situation, and rather bad attitude lend humor to some rather unhumorous situations. She attends the Network's New Years Eve party because she recieved a mysterious phone call from a P.I. who has been hired to investigate her and other on-air "talent" that work for her company. After the party, the P.I. turns up dead, and the police have some incriminating evidence, against her.

Plagued by other maladies like a machoistic boss, a report on a Sperm Bank that has been mixing up donor's "fluids", and a transvestite boyfriend, Robin tries to get to the bottom of the murder, and find out why she, of all people was being investigated.

This was a hilarious book. The mix of mystery and humor leaves little to be desired. Ms. Hayter writes very smoothly, and with good humor.

Do not judge this book by its cover! Sparkle's character, Robin Hudson, is a laugh a minute. If you love mysteries and laughter and you haven't read this book I advise you to put this one in your shopping basket without further delay. You won't regret it

"Fifteen thousand cabbies in New York, and I have to get the one who speaks English. I took down his medallion number. I don't know why. What was I going to do? Complain? Yes, Mr. Singh insisted on driving safely and being charming and wise. See that it doesn't happen again."
This is Robin Hudson's mind, her thoughts and inner most feelings all laid out on a cab ride in which she just wants to get to where she wants to go. Also, this quote from "What's a girl gotta do" was one that had me literally cracking up with laughter. She is a witty woman, that Sparkle.
The story is told all in first person by Robin Hudson. She's quick witted, honest and a totally red hot dame. This dame is also a reporter/journalist who has lost credibility in her field due to some antics. Like, belching into the mike(not knowing it would carry so far) at a press conference. She also asked someone what human meat tasted like. This is a girl who has nothing holding her back. Along side is her impending divorce. With these two strikes against her, she goes full throttle into the investigation of the murder of Griff, a private eye who had some personal information on not only Robin but a few other employees of ANN (ALL NEWS NETWORK) Otherwise known as Robin's place of work.
Griff is found murdered at the Marafles Hotel, on New Year's Eve. This is after he meets face to face with Robin on the dance floor at her work party. He tells her to come up to his room to retrieve this "information" Before she can meet him, he is found dead, apparently murdered. Robin becomes a suspect. She spends most of her time trying to prove she is innocent and find out who the real killer is. Keeping up with the frenetic pace, Robin goes about her life as normally as she can. She is working on a sperm bank scandal for the news, and is also trying to solve Griff's murder. Eventually another murder happens..no not our dear Robin. We need her to keep the story going, and she does it so well. A great face paced story that will make you laugh. I think Robin is a character many women will relate to very well. She's got strength, determination, and will not give up. A true woman of the 90's! Even though she does look like Rita Hayworth.
This debut novel of Sparkle Hayter is a murder mystery/comedy/behind the scenes of t.v. news type story. She seems like an extremely intelligent woman yet also close to comedic genius. I like how she writes. She knows how to blend comedy in with a good story, and she knows how to "hook" the reader. When I read both this and "Naked Brunch" I was immersed into a world of Sparkle's world that I didn't want to leave. I instantly fell in love with her writing when I read "Naked Brunch", which I read before this one. It's not empty mindless fun, like I said Sparkle is a smart chick. She has had some experience in the field of journalism and is also a sometime stand up comic. Smart, sassy, and Witty is how I describe her.

This is the first of five Robin Hudson mysteries. I don't usually make it a habit of reading series books, but that habit is about to start.

I picked this book up because Sparkle Hayter is going to be the Mistress of Ceremonies for Bouchercon this year. I'd never read her books, but when I saw the cover of this one, I thought it looked fun. I'm happy to say it was. I thoroughly enjoyed the story of Robin Hudson, not-so-mild-mannered TV journalist. Robin's having a rough time right now...her husband left her for a much younger woman, she's been demoted to Special Reports due to a couple of fairly serious on-air faux pas, and now someone's trying to kill her.

I got a total kick out of this book because I liked the heroine immediately, and according to my brother and his wife, the newsroom stuff is dead-on accurate. This book isn't laugh out loud funny like Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum books, but I liked the character and story just as well. I'm going to read the rest of the books in this series.

Which is not to say it is a bad book, by any means. Unpolished, maybe, but not bad.

Sparkle Hayter has created a hapless alter-ego in Robin Hudson, newswoman for the thinly-disguised ANN, 24-hour news network. Robin has been in better positions, but has been steadily dropping off the radar scope due to some poorly-timed mistakes. This serves to make Robin a likeable underdog for whom we root with gusto.

The plot: Someone is blackmailing ANN's on-air personalities. The blackmailer is murdered. Now Robin and her coworkers are all suspects. That's it.

It's pretty easy to follow, being an uncomplicated romp through the back rooms of live television news, and has its humorous moments,but is overall a "commute" book - one to read while on the train, or stuck in traffic, or waiting for a dalayed plane. There really isn't enough here to engage a fully-attentive brain.

I finally got the chance to read Sparkle Hayter's first book What's A Girl Gotta Do? I must say, it's probably one of her best...

Robin Hudson is a soon-to-be divorced journalist who has been shunted off to the tabloid story department of the TV network she works for. One day she gets a message from a private investigator revealing a lot of personal/intimate information about her that she thought nobody knew. But before she can meet with the guy to figure out what he wants, he's murdered in such a way that it looks like she could be the killer. The more she picks at the story, the more she finds out, and it looks like a number of the personalities at the station were also investigated and blackmailed. While she's trying to stay alive, stay out of the bed of a co-worker, and deal with her soon-to-be ex and his pregnant fiancee, she also has to do an undercover story at a sperm bank posing as the wife to her slimebag boss.

This is a wacky story with funny, snide, and sexy characters. This book sets a lot of the background color for many of her future Robin Hudson novels that I've already read. This may well be my favorite of all her novels, and it will be interesting to see if her future work can work back up to this level.

Reporter Robin Hudson discovers she is being investigated by a private eye but before she can find out why,he's murdered. She's not the only woman at the All News Network being investigated. This book made me think about several sex scandals that have been in the news. A word of advice, read this series in order. I did not and wish I had.

While this book is classified a mystery, it's more about life in an office setting and the lead characters view about her co-workers. I wish I could say some of the things she does to her boss!

The mystery does seem a little over complicated at times but it was refreshing to see the mystery unfold by someone who wasn't totally into the murder investigation and didn't have all this insider information. More believable.

Will be going to look for other books in the series this weekend.

-- And so she should be if she's to survive her reversals of fortune at work and in love. Relagated to an undesireable job at the TV station where she works (due to un-couthness during a live White House broadcast) and demoted to the title of ex-wife, Robin seems to be one of those people to whom trouble is perpetually attracted. Having to face the ex's chipper young 'other woman' *and* deal with a murdered blackmailer requires all the resourcefulness Robin can muster.

The 'who' in whodunit came as a surprise to me.

This is my first book by Sparkle Hayter, but it won't be the last.