A Diet to Die for (Claire Malloy Mysteries, No. 5) [Hardcover]

Joan Hess (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1989

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.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

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.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"Hess's books are funny, acerbic, touching, terrific."--Elizabeth Peters

"Hess goes about things in a lively style. Her heroine, Claire Malloy, has a sharp eye and an irreverent way of describing what she sees."--The New York Times Book Review

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 199 pages
• Publisher: St Martins Pr; 1st edition (November 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312033265
• ISBN-13: 978-0312033262
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #695,513 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another winning effort from Hess, May 16, 2000

By 

David Crookham (Pittsburgh, PA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Diet to Die for (Claire Malloy Mysteries, No. 5) (Mass Market Paperback)

Joan Hess once again takes us on a funny yet exciting adventure through the town of Farberville. A new weight loss center opens up in town and appears to be doing wonders for it's clients. Claire Malloy gets sucked in to provide rides and moral support to a friend of a friend who is a client. Naturally Claire's natural curiosity causes her to sense that there's a lot more going on at the weight loss center than is being advertised. Her digging into the facts leads to much excitement as well as danger to her own welfare. Suspenseful and witty all the way through with the usual characters such as melodratic daughter Caron and boyfriend/police detective Peter Rosen well rounding out the cast of characters.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars FORGET THE AEROBICS AND PASS THE CHOCOLATE!, April 1, 2003

By 

Robert Edler "Master Of Mystery" (Saint Louis, Missouri USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: A Diet to Die for (Claire Malloy Mysteries, No. 5) (Mass Market Paperback)

This fun mystery opens with Caron, Claire Malloy's teenaged terror, being selected Miss Thunder Thighs by the Farberville Highschool sophomore football team Naturally, she immediately decides that it is time for her and her best friend Inez to go on a crash diet. So, being Caron and Inez, the duo proceeds to run the gauntlet of every known bizarre fad diet know to man, woman and kook. And they all manage to end up with a pizza chaser.

While the dieting is running its course, Claire's downstairs neighbor volunteers her to become a weight loss mentor to Maribeth, the somewhat overweigh heiress of the Thurber-Farber fortune. This is all very well and good, except Claire just happens to be dedicated to salvation through chocolate and also to avoiding aerobic exercise at all costs.

Before long, Claire is in the middle of some very strange and highly humorous goings on including murder. Joan Hess is at her best spearing fitness centers, fad diets and instant weight loss elixirs. You know from the beginning how everything will turn out in the end, (with Claire solving the mystery despite her boy friend, Peter Rosen) but all the twists and turns and kooky characters are half the fun of a Hess mystery. Without a doubt she is one of the best writers of comic mystery fiction today!