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Award-winning TV producer Kate Gallagher has been laid off and dumped by her boyfriend all in one week. People at her old station have mentioned that, though she has the looks for an on-air personality in that her red hair and cheekbones are perfect, her weight is just too high to get a job in front of the camera. So now that she feels at the end of her rope she's picked a weight-loss clinic and travels to the Hoffman Clinic in Durham, NC to go on a diet and lose weight fast. When she gets there she meets the clinic's head diet guru, Dr Hoffman. He doesn't impress her. He's too nasty and insulting to his clients for Kate, but the people there seem to respect the weight-loss results they get. Kate had made contact with a local TV station to do a weight-loss series special before she got there to make some money as she loses weight. She hopes to get more on airtime to show off her soon to be svelte body. On her first day at the clinic, just as she is getting ready to go on a sunrise hike she and another dieter find Dr Hoffman dead on the front porch with fondue forks stuck in his eyes. After calling the story in and then calling the police, Kate takes on this new story for her new TV station. She also takes on the very British detective who is in North Carolina on an exchange trip. Kate delves deep into the crime to get her story, no matter that she might become the next victim. She has the ready ear of the Brit cop and since her own interfering father is a high-ranking policeman in Boston, she feels comfortable pushing herself into the case. Though it has all the ingredients to be a fine murder mystery DYING TO BE THIN just didn't get and keep my interest. Kate has almost no sense of humor about herself and others. Her opinion about gaining and losing weight are all rather dry and humorless. Her remarks about her fellow dieters are rather mean spirited, mainly because she's thrilled to be one of the smaller people at the clinic. So I suppose she thinks she really isn't one of the fat people, so her comments are a little mean. I had trouble feeling a bond with Kate because, though she keeps complaining about her excess pounds, she always has men telling her how gorgeous she is which Kate takes as her due. Kate constantly drools over high calorie foods, but always manages to skip meals without being hungry. Once on the diet she never has much trouble sticking to it. Other than mentioning that she thinks of luscious chocolate-based foods, she manages to be a perfect dieter. One wonders why she never successfully dieted before the book started. I was hoping to see how reporters work a case because the writer, Kathryn Lilley, is a journalist, but all Kate did was to question everybody with little results. Kate as an amateur sleuth never had a clue and so the readers didn't get to ride along with her to figure out the crime since Kate never figured out the crime at all. The ending was extremely unsatisfying. DYING TO BE THIN didn't entertain, even though the subject matter is of interest to me. I won't be looking to read the next in the series.
Reviewed by A. L. Katz, October 2007
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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