book seller w police boyfriend

Claire Malloy mystery + diet center + drugs - steroids on the team - okay

Claire Malloy believes there is just one thing better than chocolate...and it's not jumping a round in an aerobics class. Nonetheless, she gets roped into accompanying a chubby heiress named Maribeth to Faberville, Arkansas's hottest new fitness center. Personally, Claire thinks the best way for Maribeth to lose 160 unnecessary pounds would be to dump her abusive husband. But while Claire's teenage daughter Caron unsuccessfully tries every fad diet she can find (as long as it doesn't mean cutting out pizza), Claire has to admit Maribeth's commitment to diet, workouts, and supplements is working...until things go horribly wrong. Besides becoming moonstruck over the big-muscled fitness instructor, Maribeth is acting loony outside the gym as well. And when she ends up "accidentally" dead, Claire starts to exercise her instincts for crime...and hunt for a killer.

Enjoyed the college town/bookstore setting, and the diet-related theme running through the story. I like the suthor's use of humor as well. ( )

http://hollybooknotes.blogspot.com/2008/08/again-with-joan-hess.html ( )

Publishers Weekly Review: Mixing tensions and witticisms as usual, Hess's latest mystery, after A Really Cute Corpse , stars Claire Malloy of Farberville, Ark., bookstore owner and amateur sleuth. Maribeth Galleston (nee Farber), obese and depressed, knows her bullying husband Gerald is interested only in the millions she's due to inherit from the town's founder. Claire persuades Maribeth to enroll in the swank Ultima Diet Center and in Joseph (Jody) Delano's grueling exercise classes. Although elated by her initial success, Maribeth soon begins acting irrationally, causing a`her'? is this maribeth's own fatal accident? it should stand as is. Marybeth causes a fatal accident by driving her car into another character. fatal accident which, as Claire fears, sets off more crises. Defying warnings from her lover, detective Pete Rosen, Claire investigates the next tragedy, the murder of a young fitness buff at Delano's place. Suspecting the real target was Maribeth, Claire aims at discovering the killer's motive, thus falling into the trap requisite for a mystery heroine, and for her ordained victory. (Dec.) ( )