WHAT'S A GIRL GOTTA DO?

As if third-string reporter Robin Hudson, of New York's All News Network, didn't have enough problems already—her estranged husband's taken up with an on-air twinkie, her sex life is a distant memory, she's seen en route to a staff masquerade party waving a tire iron at her abusive old downstairs neighbor—and now the mysterious caller who insisted she meet him at the party stands her up because he's been killed by a blunt instrument, like maybe a tire iron. Though the police don't take Robin seriously as a suspect, all the ANN higher-ups who aren't busy hitting on her are ready to give her up to protect super-reporter Joanne Armoire when it turns out that the dead guy, a shamus with a file on anybody who's worked with ANN's premier anchor Greg Browner, was interested in Armoire—and in Browner's former producer Susan Brave too. What's the connection, and does it have to involve Robin's perilously young new romantic prospect, Browner producer Eric Slansky? The dialogue reads like a string of Percodan lunches, but Robin's seen-it-all naivetÇ makes this an appealing debut.