Amazon Review
To describe Hayter's writing as "sparkling" would be to do her an injustice. Every description, line of dialogue and scene packs a punch. Her bold, "blousy" style is equivalent to being caught in on-coming traffic--it's noisy and hectic and possibly gory but, lord, what a ride. Hayter's prose doesn't just sparkle, it explodes across the page.

In The Chelsea Girl Murders, Robin Hudson, a forty-ish newswoman and New Yorker, finds herself yet again hurled into chaos and carnage. When her neighbour Mrs Ramirez, legendary for "patrolling the neighbourhood for public urinators and other ne'er-do-wells", accidentally burns down their apartment building with her electric Ascension of Jesus display, Robin moves into her friend Tamayo's place at the Chelsea hotel, "the kind of place the Addams family would check into when in New York". Murder and mayhem are never too far from Robin's door so it's hardly surprising that a knock in the middle of the night leads to a dead man tumbling onto her carpet. In the space of 48 hours, Robin gets herself embroiled with a murder, a missing person's case, an elopement, art forgery and feuding magicians. Nothing unusual there then!

Throughout it all, Hayter's perennial theme of balancing feminism with a healthy, heterosexual appetite snakes its way through the subtext of the plot in teasing and irreverent ways. Don't be fooled as Hayter/Hudson's tongue lashes and licks seemingly at whim--every nuance and casual aside has a knock-on effect--building up to the thrilling denouement.

Other Robin Hudson novels include What's a Girl Gotta Do, Nice Girls Finish Last, Revenge of the Cootie Girls and The Last Manly Man. --Nicola Perry