Page Updated: 17/05/00
Sparkle Hayter
Sparkle Hayter
The Chelsea Girl MurdersThe Chelsea Girl Murders New19 Apr 00
Revenge of the Cootie GirlsRevenge of the Cootie Girls
The Last Manly ManThe Last Manly Man
Nice Girls Finish LastNice Girls Finish Last
What's A Girl Gotta Do?What's A Girl Gotta Do?
WebPage: http://www.planetsparkle.com/
About the Author
Bibliography


New First British Edition No Exit Press (2000)
The Chelsea Girl Murders
When a fire forces TV newswoman Robin Hudson to vacate her apartment, she and her cat Louise Bryant move into the legendary Chelsea Hotel, the bohemian hostelry where artists both famous and infamous have long lived in semi-peaceful coexistence with countless hangers-on, wannabes, and rubberneckers looking for the "real" New York. A smoky-eyed man she's just met dies in an apparent suicide, but Robin's not so sure. Could it be murder? Perhaps a genuine suicide subtly staged to look like murder and thereby frame someone? Maybe even the last word in performance art? Is it related in some way to the star-crossed and rather irritable young lovers who have appealed to Robin for help? To sort it out, Robin must brave the whole downtown thing and more: guerrilla artists, jealous women, brooding poets, feuding magicians, art forgers, and befuddled tourists. Oh, and plus ... one final, terrible complication: Robin seems to have fallen accidentally in love. Will Robin get the bad guy? The qood guy? Both?
'Sparkle Hayter is the creator of the sassiest, feistiest, bigmouthed adventuress ever to strut her spike-heeled stuff off the pages of pulp mystery fiction and into the realms of cult heroine' Big Issue
'Tips Bridget Jones off the scales and steals her fags!' Crime Time
'Feisty, sassy, sexy, wise-cracking and delightful' Times
'Sparkle Hayter is a wonderful writer' Marian Keyes
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British Pbk Original - No Exit Press (1999)
Revenge of the Cootie Girls
Robin Hudson is now executive producer of Special Reports and she is feeling relatively settled, if bored. She has taken on wide-eyed small town girl, Kathy Loblaws as an intern and invited her to a Girls Night Out - a semi-regular frenzy of female bonding meant to alleviate Robin's girlfriends' love crises and her own ennui. It's Halloween and Kathy doesn't show but telephones from a strange man's closet. Aided by her pals, Robin must track down her errant charge through one long night of murder and mayhem, costumes and concealed weapons, men who are (strangely enough) not what they seem and déjà vu as Robin slowly realises that her search is really a deadly trip into the past, fuelled by an old curse.
'Sexy, irreverent and wacky. Robin Hudson should be Stephanie Plum's goilfriend' Janet Evanovich.
'Sparkle's debut really is sparkling with lots of laughs and superior bitchiness' Mike Ripley, Daily Telegraph
'The funniest thing to come out of Canada since the moose!' Red
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Paperback - No Exit Press (1999)
First British Edition No Exit Press (1998)
The Last Manly Man
Overnight success, two handsome boyfriends, plenty of employees to boss around ... Everything is suddenly going right in the life of newswoman and reluctant sleuth Robin Hudson. But Hudson's life is ruled by no law but Murphy's. It isn't long before a good deed for a strange man in a hat and a series of other seemingly random encounters lead Hudson into a bizarre murder investigation - and a secret world of men she never knew existed. Hot on the trail of a mysterious chemical known as Adam 1, Hudson braves fist-fighting goons, a testosterone-soaked hunting expedition, libidinous chimpanzees, and a convention of drugged feminists, to solve her most challenging case yet.
At the heart of this satirical, offbeat mystery are Sparkle Hayter's wry reflections on modern sexual stereotypes, social conditioning, and mad science. A perfect blend of mystery and mockery, satire and spoof, as well as an unorthodox love letter to men, The Last Manly Man will dazzle readers from the first rollicking page to the last.
'The Last Manly Man is satire at its best: witty, wise and oh, so relevant. Sparkle Hayter's new novel - with its deliciously eccentric New Yorkers, a dead body, a been-around-the-block reporter and a pack of libidinous primates - as an absolute hoot' Susan Isaacs
'Robin Hudson is one of the liveliest new arrivals on the mystery scene. She's funny, feisty, sexy and entirely believable. In the Last Manly Man, she meditates wittily on issues of gender and even gets close to answering the question that has puzzled - and frightened - men over the centuries: What do women really think of us?' Simon Brett
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British Pbk Original - No Exit Press (1998)
Nice Girls Finish Last
Tips Bridget Jones off the scales and steals her fags!
At 37, with one failed marriage and several lousy dates behind her, Robin Hudson is working on a new attitude - the Positive Mental one! Sure she's still toiling away in the tabloidesque Special Reports unit at the All News Network for her loathsome boss, Jerry Spurdle, but amidst the rumours of cutbacks she thinks a good attitude might improve her karma. Besides, she's added to her personal defence system a new weapon - a hot-glue gun with two settings, steam and spray - so what could go wrong?
Then her gynaecologist is murdered and Jerry sends Robin to investigate a link with S&M sex-club underworld. In the meantime, someone is taking potshots at ANN's male talent. Are the shootings connected to the murder of the doctor? To Robin? Her P.M.A. hanging by a thread, Robin must solve the mystery - or she may never have another date.
This is Sparkle Hayter's second novel.
"Robin Hudson is an absolute delight, sexy and smart, tough and yet vulnerable, quirky and yet somehow universal… Nice Girls Finish Last is a wonderful comedy and a completely satisfying mystery' Walter Satterthwaite
"Hilarious stuff- we want morel" Company
"A sexy, funny, raunchy romp through network news. I loved it." Nancy Pickard
"A fine mystery...without any moustachioed Belgians." Seinfeld
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British Pbk Original - No Exit Press (1997)
What's A Girl Gotta Do?
See Review by John Baker
Funny, raunchy and certainly not for the politically correct ....this is a book about what happens when men use power to get sex, women use sex to get power and people of integrity, more or less, get caught in the crossfire.
Nothing is going right for Robin Hudson, a spunky, sexy "slightly rumpled, third string reporter in Rita Hayworth's body" Her husband has left her for a prettier and much younger woman; she's been demoted to the tabloidesque Special Reports unit at the All News Network after an on-air faux pas at the White House; and a blackmailer knows some of her worst secrets. To top it all, Robin becomes a suspect in a brutal murder. Gathering her wits, her perfume atomizer spiked with cayenne pepper, she turns reluctant sleuth to find the real killer and clear her name - all this while doing an undercover assignment at a sperm bank with her loathsome boss. But Robin is going to need more than wisecracks and makeshift weapons to solve this murder - and to avoid becoming a corpse herself.
"A hilarious romp through the pompous world of TV journalism… This is a mystery where you wait on the edge of your seat not for the next murder, but for the next thing Robin is going to say" Washington Post Book World
"The most uproariously funny murder mystery ever written." Katherine Neville
"A sexy, funny, raunchy romp through network news. I loved it." Nancy Pickard
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About The Author
Sparkle (Yes...that is her real name!) Hayter was born in Pouce Coupe, Canada and depending on your perspective is just the right side of 40. She has worked for CNN, before reporting (and avoiding getting killed) on the Afghan War. On her return to NY she performed stand up comedy (she still does) and rewrote a mystery novel first written in 1986 while riding trains round India. This was What's A Girl Gotta Do and was published in 1994. There followed two further Penguin (US) paperbacks, Nice Girls Finish Last and Revenge of the Cootie Girls, before she was tempted (for all of 3 seconds) by a serious 6 figure advance from Morrow for her new novel to be published in 1998 - One of the Boys. Sparkle is a big Indian movie buff (!) and she is planning on going back to India next year with comedienne, Tamayo Otsuki, to make a film about trying to break into Indian movies in Bollywood! No Exit beat off hordes of admirers to secure the rights in her first three novels.
Sparkle lives in the Chelsea Hotel, New York.

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Bibliography
N.B. dates and publishers in dark red indicate British First Editions. Dates and publishers in black indicate recent reprints.

  • The Chelsea Girl Murders (No Exit Press, 2000) New Apr 00 (Robin Hudson)
  • Revenge of the Cootie Girls (No Exit Press Pbk, 1999) (Robin Hudson)
  • The Last Manly Man (No Exit Press, 1998) No Exit Press Pbk Nov 99 (Robin Hudson)
  • Nice Girls Finish Last (No Exit Press Pbk, 1998) (Robin Hudson)
  • What's A Girl Gotta Do? (No Exit Press Pbk, 1997) (Robin Hudson)

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