A Body to Die For

October 13, 2008
Soon after plus-sized PI Savannah Reid helps San Carmelita, Calif., Det. Sgt. Dirk Coulter nab a peeping Tom at Clarissa's House of Pain and Gain in McKevett's lively 14th mystery to feature the proprietor of the Moonlight and Magnolia Detective Agency (after 2008's Poisoned Tarts
), obnoxious diet guru Clarissa Jardin reports her womanizing, gambling husband, Bill, missing. When Bill turns up as a frozen corpse with a bullet in his skull, Bill's mother hires Savannah to prove Clarissa killed her son or hired someone to do it. Savannah suspects Clarissa offed her hubby, but she and Dirk discover a few other potential culprits, notably Clarissa's twin, very fat sister, who posed for Clarissa's fake “before” pictures in ads promoting her fitness and diet plan. McKevett (the pseudonym of Sonja Massie) delivers another amusing tart-tongued cozy that goes down like a yummy guilt-free dessert.

October 15, 2008
Private eye Savannah Reid (Poisoned Tarts, 2008, etc.) works up a sweat investigating the death of a fitness freak's husband.

Clarissa Jardin has built her exercise empire on encouragements like "Go, you tub-o! Move that lard! " But when it comes to reporting her husband Bill's disappearance, she's no ball of fire. It takes the Mistress of Pain and Gain five full days to let Detective Sergeant Dirk Coulter of the San Carmelita PD know about her AWOL spouse —time enough for his body to turn up facedown in Sulphur Creek. Savannah helps Dirk pull an all-nighter prodding the medical examiner to finish the postmortem, sweet-talking the crime lab to process Jardin's Jaguar and watching her assistant Tammy Hart enhance photos of blood spatter in the glove box. Moving ever forward, the pair discovers Jardin's mistress Sharona Dubarry, a pack of gambling debts to a mobster named Pinky and a second liaison with Clarissa's sister Rachel. At length Bill's mom Ruby Jardin, convinced that Clarissa did away with her son, hires Savannah to get the goods on her daughter-in-law. But when Savannah's sister Marietta shows up at her doorstep, it's lights out for San Carmelita's favorite sleuth, who conks out on her couch mid-wisecrack.

As usual, her tongue is the muscle that gets the most exercise as lively Savannah sets one and all straight.

(COPYRIGHT (2008) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

January 1, 2009
This is the fourteenth adventure for PI Savannah Reid, owner of the Moonlight Magnolia Detective Agency. If you havent had the pleasure of meeting her before, she is a voluptuous Georgia native transplanted to ritzy San Carmelita, California. Several of the more recent novels, including this one, concentrate on those who have unhealthy obsessions with dieting and exercise. There are also fascinating forensic details a bit out of the typical cozy realm. This time Savannah and her wizard technical assistant, Tammy Hart, help her police friend, Dirk Coulter, catch the locker-room perverts who are snapping illicit pictures at a health club owned by Clarissa Jardin, the queen of weight loss. But then Jardins husband goes missing and is eventually found shot to death. As usual, Savannahs zany relatives and good friends make appearances while the trio works to solve the crimeand everyone has ample opportunity to enjoy Savannahs delicious cooking.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)