A Diet to Die for (Claire Malloy Mysteries, No. 5) (Mass Market Paperback)

by Joan Hess (Author) "The little bell above the door of the Book Depot jangled with such fury I expected to see it sail across the room..." (more)
Key Phrases: diet place, diet center, potassium deficiency, Ultima Center, Betty Lou, Book Depot (more...)

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

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
-- Review

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Minotaur Books (January 7, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312981376
• ISBN-13: 978-0312981372
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #591,231 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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• This is item 5 in The Claire Malloy Series.

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)

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!