What's A Girl Gotta Do

Review and links at http://clsiewert.wordpress.com/2014/11/03/whats-a-girl-gotta-do-by-sparkle-hayte...

Before there was Stephanie Plum and Isabel Spellman, there was Robin Hudson. I discovered Robin long before Plum came around, and for those who became disenchanted with Evanovich’s kooky series, there’s a lot more to love here. With her ingenious poison-ivy window-box defense system and her homemade personal defenses (“I still had two backup systems in my purse, a bottle of cheap spray cologne spiked with cayenne pepper to approximate Mace and a battery-operated Epilady, which I realized after one use was a better offensive weapon than feminine aid"), she’s ready for any eventuality.

Hudson works at a 24-hour news agency, the show more All News Network (CNN), but has recently been demoted to the Special Reports unit after a series of journalistic mishaps. Her misogynistic boss Jerry Spurdle has assigned her to an undercover sperm bank investigation and has decided to involve himself by acting as her husband. Unfortunately, while she’s suffering to get back into management’s good graces, she’s also navigating a divorce from her reporter husband after his affair with a younger woman. When a blackmailer threatens her with highly personal information, she isn’t sure who to suspect. She offers to meet the blackmailer at ANN’s annual’ Halloween party and “as one of my New Year’s resolutions was to try and offend fewer people in the next decade and thereby escape from the century with my life. I decided to go as Ginny Foat, a prominent feminist tried for murder and acquitted in 1983.” When the blackmailer is found dead, everyone at ANN is on the suspect list.

New York City plays a enjoyable role as backdrop, with references that have more to do with local culture than landmarks. Hudson lives in a dicey section of the East Village, which justifies her safety-conscious routine: “The sidewalks beneath me were black and buckled and there were little groups of junkies on every corner. There must be a lot of good, cheap smack around, I thought, because the junkies were friendlier than usual.” Besides having to navigate her physical safety, she has more than her share of misunderstandings with the other tenants, particularly one that is convinced Robin works as a prostitute.

There’s a definite late 80s feel to this one; given that Robin works in television journalism, many of her references and snide remarks reference major news stories and television in general: “I’m only thirty-seven, but that’s a lot in TV years, which are rather like dog years.” I found them amusing, but then again, I was old enough to live through them. In fact, it’s rather interesting reading this again after so many years because it is so period (I think I found the series in the early 90s). Hayter is often coy about her background, but I was able to dig up one interview where she admits her first book was taken from experiences at CNN.

I love Hayter’s writing; the pace snaps along, with a great balance of reflection, dialogue and action. Narrated in first person by Robin, her voice is highly entertaining. Robin is a smart, eccentric and funny woman–just the kind of person I’d love to call a friend: “Because living well is not the best revenge, Bob. The best revenge, in my opinion, is huge crates of Depend undergarments delivered to his apartment door.”

The mystery is quite clever, with unexpected turns in how it effects Robin. A usual mystery trope is played out quickly, and I found myself surprised at the plotting. Despite quirky characters and events, Hayter is able to bring tension to the plotting, just enough for the reader to not be entirely sure Robin will be safe, elevating it above a madcap adventure. Shoot. My re-read has reminded me how much I enjoy Robin. I’m going to have to make time for my favorite in the series, The Chelsea Girl Murders. Similar to Willis' [b:Bellwether|24985|Bellwether|Connie Willis|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1431535122l/24985._SY75_.jpg|1194887] with more mystery, Gran's [b:Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead|9231999|Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead (Claire DeWitt Mysteries, #1)|Sara Gran|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1312909281l/9231999._SY75_.jpg|14112168] but with more adult behavior and Lutz' [b:The Spellman Files|129117|The Spellman Files (The Spellmans, #1)|Lisa Lutz|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1347521714l/129117._SX50_.jpg|2896642]. One of my perennial re-reads.



Originally released in 1994, it’s being re-released in ebook in 2014. Although I have this one in hardcover, thanks to NetGalley and Open Road Integrated Media for providing an e-book to review and prompting a re-read of an old favorite.

Re-read August 2016. Still enjoy it. Still entertaining. Probably deserves five stars.
Re-read December 2023 because December can be stressful. show less

Robin Hudson is a TV journalist for an all-news network who, after a series of unfortunate mishaps, has been relegated to the Special Reports section working for the office sleaze, Jerry Spurdle. She's in the midst of a divorce from a rival newsman who had an affair with her co-worker, but when she receives a phone call from an anonymous P.I. threatening to expose all the embarrassing information her co-workers don't already know about her, she agrees to show up to the company NYE party to receive instructions for buying his silence. She never meets with the man because he's murdered before she gets the chance and circumstances make her look like a good suspect.

I tag this book cozy, but it isn't. It's a murder mystery with a strong show more female character, edgy situations and language, but nothing explicitly violent or graphic. Robin Hudson is a "rumpled Rita Hayworth" in looks, but still easily a woman other women can identify with; she balances competence with anxiety and an intimidating defensiveness with a genuine desire to do the right thing and be a nice person. She grows poison ivy around all her windows and on top of all her valuables so if she's robbed, the police can identify the culprit by the rash they'll be sporting. Robin is a great heroine.

Set in a gritty, 1980's NYC that feels incredibly authentic, the mystery is really well done. Plenty of suspects and no telegraphing of the villain. At least one red herring. This is a slower paced mystery than most of the ones I read today; I have cozies that have more "action" but the pace doesn't lag and the author knows and shares enough about the TV news industry that I never felt impatient to move the story along.

This is the first of 5 books in the Robin Hudson series and I'm glad I kept these on the shelf; I enjoyed this second read at least as much as I enjoyed it the first time and I'd recommend it to anyone who likes a mystery that's just this side of cozy. show less

My friend insisted that I read this book quite some time ago... I bought it right away, but then it just kind of sat around. It really shouldn't have taken me this long to get around to taking her advice!

It's a light-hearted, humorous murder mystery... but I have to admit that, for me, what really made it shine wasn't the plot but its spot-on depiction of the New York City that I moved to. The book was published in 1994 and set shortly before then. The main character, Robin Hudson, lives in the East Village and works as a struggling reporter [the recommending friend and I both lived in the same neighborhood and worked in the media field at that time as well...] Robin's a bit older than I was at the time - but that just means that I show more think I actually enjoyed it more, reading it now, than I would have if I'd found it when it first came out.

When we're introduced to Robin, she's admittedly at a low point. Her husband has just left her for a younger woman. She's made two embarrassing gaffes at work that mean she's been demoted from high-profile journalism to Special Reports (in one case, this mean going undercover for an expose of a sperm bank). And to top it all off, she's now been contacted by a mysterious caller who seems to have blackmail in mind. But when the potential blackmailer turns up dead at her office costume party ("dress as your favorite news story" [ah, for the days when tasteless Halloween costumes were de rigueur!]), suddenly Robin's no longer the one reporting the news; she's the one in the news - as a murder suspect. Will she be able to clear her name and find out who's behind the plot?

As I said - it needs to be read to truly realize how funny the book is. It's just got so many devastatingly accurate details, all delivered with wit. I found the attitude refreshing - and as sparkling as the author's name... like reading a glass of bubbly.

It also made me really nostalgic for a whole social milieu that just isn't there any more... yeah, there were crappy parts of that time period, but in a way, it was mine... so yeah, definitely going to go ahead and find the other books in this series. show less

Down these mean streets a goil must muddle in this acute, funny hard-boiled novel that introduces Robin Hudson, a klutzy TV journalist who is sucked into murder mystery through a knowingly absurd collection of coincidences. The interim mysteries are too rapidly resolved: sundty prefigurings are explained within a few pages but the key plot point is a satisfying surprise and the pace is so hectic that the pages just keep turning. Robin's domestic circumstances are as entertaining as the crime and her sassy attitude combines an appealling vulnerability with the hardened cynicism of any 1930s Californian PI. A stylish debut.

A great tongue-in-cheek look at a CNN-type news organization. Fun characters, fun plot and an ending I suspected but didn't feel was telegraphed in any way. I really liked Robin - just nuts enough to seem human.

Wise-cracking amateur gumshoe reporter Robin Hudson is on the chase for a killer before he strikes again.

The thing is, I still sort of believed in love. I was kind of agnostic about love, actually, but I hadn’t lost all hope completely. I was waiting for the feminist wet dream, Spencer Tracy. And while I was waiting, great looks and a great bod could tide me over nicely.
-Sparkle Hayter (What’s a Girl To Do p 70)
In fact, I am a slob. I admit it. It’s not that I’m a lazy person. I tend to workaholism and when I do clean, I clean compulsively, unable to stop until the place is completely spotless. But housework just seems so insignificant and, as men have always known, there’s always something better to do. I haven’t read Moby show more Dick yet. I haven’t seen Fellini’s Satyricon. There are dozens of countries in the world about which I know nothing and billions of people I haven’t yet met.
-Sparkle Hayter (What’s a Girl To Do p 139)
There is Murphy’s Law and there are Robin’s Amendments. Number one. The guy with the biggest tub of popcorn and nosiest eating habits will always sit directly behind me in a movie theater (or else a hearing-impaired foreign national with his translator, so that every line of on-screen dialogue is repeated in loud German). Number two. The amount a man adores me is roughly equal to the number of his faults. Number three. When I’m already running late, something will inevitably happen to make me even later.
-Sparkle Hayter (What’s a Girl To Do p 145-6)
Burke, after surveying my umbrella, my poison ivy, and my spray colon spiked with cayenne pepper, once asked me if there was anything that couldn’t be a weapon if it fell into my hands. The only thing I could think of was Jell-O. “To you the world is just full of weapons, isn’t it?” he said. Yep, and the world is just full of reasons to use them, I thought now, as I left the store, prepared in my heart to bludgeon a man to death with a coffee can if necessary.
-Sparkle Hayter (What’s a Girl To Do p 200) show less

"What fun! Robin Hudson's a great character - witty, tough, a bit of a mess, smart and just a tad cynical. Who wouldn't like her? Plus, she does have rather a knack for getting herself into messes. The writing is crisp and precise, the humor undeniable. Somewhere I heard the term "tart noir". Excellent. Thoroughly enjoyable!"