RogerBW's Blog

What's A Girl Gotta Do, Sparkle Hayter 08 September 2014

Robin Hudson had a promising career as a TV journalist, but blew it with some public embarrassment. Now her ex-husband has a younger and prettier fiancée, her job for not-CNN involves investigating a sperm bank, and she's about to be blackmailed. Then the blackmailer turns up dead…

This is not a conventional mystery; as in Janet Evanovich's apparently-endless Stephanie Plum series, there's lots of stuff going on that's not plot-relevant. These diversions and fireworks effectively distracted me from the search for the murderer, which I count as a win for the author. If you're looking for a strictly rule-following mystery, however, go elsewhere; counted solely by clue presence, the pace is pretty slow, because of all the other things that are going on.

Unlike Stephanie Plum, Robin Hudson is competent: maybe not the wonder-reporter she thinks she could be, and certainly no good in the field of personal relationships, but she's basically decent at her job. You will have to take her as she is in order to enjoy the book, mind; she's self-interested, perhaps even self-absorbed, and prone to minor casual attacks on co-workers she doesn't like. One just has to roll with it.

Hayter was a TV journalist before she took up writing, and is clearly using her own experiences as background information. There's no tedious messing around explaining how a TV news studio works: we know, or we can pick it up as we go along. I imagine someone who knew more about the early history of CNN would see more parallels with the "ANN" that's Robin's employer. It's not perhaps quite as fascinating as Hayter thinks it is, but it's still enjoyable. There are rather too many characters; admittedly they all get their potted background (and are probably drawn from the life), but from the perspective of a modern novel the cast's about twice as big as it should be.

In part this book is fascinating as a look back into a world where TV news was still nearly as important as it thought it was. (It's also apparently one of the defining works of the subgenre known as Tart Noir.)

Followed by Nice Girls Finish Last.

[Buy this at Amazon] and help support the blog. ["As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases."]

Series: Robin Hudson | Next in series: Nice Girls Finish Last

  1. Posted by John Dallman at 07:14pm on 08 September 2014

    Good to see this series getting reprinted. I read them in about 1995-6 as entertainment, not worrying about the mystery side. They're good fun.

  2. Posted by RogerBW at 07:24pm on 08 September 2014

    Certainly if I were a purist mystery fan I'd be unsatisfied. As it is, there's a lot to enjoy here.

Comments on this post are now closed. If you have particular grounds for adding a late comment, comment on a more recent post quoting the URL of this one.

Search
Archive
Tags 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 3d printing action advent of code aeronautics aikakirja anecdote animation anime army astronomy audio audio tech aviation base commerce battletech beer boardgaming book of the week bookmonth chain of command children chris chronicle church of no redeeming virtues cold war comedy computing contemporary cornish smuggler cosmic encounter coup covid-19 crime cthulhu eternal cycling dead of winter doctor who documentary drama driving drone ecchi economics en garde espionage essen 2015 essen 2016 essen 2017 essen 2018 essen 2019 essen 2022 essen 2023 existential risk falklands war fandom fanfic fantasy feminism film firefly first world war flash point flight simulation food garmin drive gazebo genesys geocaching geodata gin gkp gurps gurps 101 gus harpoon historical history horror hugo 2014 hugo 2015 hugo 2016 hugo 2017 hugo 2018 hugo 2019 hugo 2020 hugo 2022 hugo-nebula reread in brief avoid instrumented life javascript julian simpson julie enfield kickstarter kotlin learn to play leaving earth linux liquor lovecraftiana lua mecha men with beards mpd museum music mystery naval noir non-fiction one for the brow opera parody paul temple perl perl weekly challenge photography podcast politics postscript powers prediction privacy project woolsack pyracantha python quantum rail raku ranting raspberry pi reading reading boardgames social real life restaurant reviews romance rpg a day rpgs ruby rust scala science fiction scythe second world war security shipwreck simutrans smartphone south atlantic war squaddies stationery steampunk stuarts suburbia superheroes suspense television the resistance the weekly challenge thirsty meeples thriller tin soldier torg toys trailers travel type 26 type 31 type 45 vietnam war war wargaming weather wives and sweethearts writing about writing x-wing young adult
Special All book reviews, All film reviews
Produced by aikakirja v0.1