A Killer Workout
Kathryn Lilley
Reviewed by Mary Aycock
Kathryn Lilley is a graduate of Wellesley College (and former editor-in-chief of the Wellesley News.) She received a graduate degree in journalism from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, interned at stations in Cambridge, MA and South Carolina, and worked as an on-air reporter for WIS-TV in Columbia, South Carolina. She once lost 90 pounds to land a job on camera as a TV reporter.
Well qualified to write about being a news reporter AND the battle of the bulge, Ms Lilley goes one better and writes about being a plus-size investigative TV reporter who suddenly finds herself caught up in a tangled web of theft, drugs, arson, murder and love gone wrong.
The reporter with the double digit dress size and the over-the-top BMI, Kate Gallagher, checks in to a boot-camp style fitness program owned by an old friend of hers from way back in her high school days. Nostalgia runs rampant through this story, as we learn about the background of the Body Blast fitness program’s owners, staff and guests. But, you need something bigger than an ice cream scoop to scoop the news on all the HISTORY they really have together! We discover it in bite size pieces, just as the author intends!
The least fit guest happens to be Kate’s roommate and assigned “body buddy,” Marnie, who was unceremoniously dumped in the parking lot of Body Blast by her grumpy ex-boyfriend, right at Kate’s feet. They don’t have much time to get to know each other or to settle in to their rooms before they are called to assemble for the Evaluation course, a rough obstacle course that separates the Supremely Fit from the Hopelessly Challenged. The obstacles get more and more demanding, ending in the terror called “The Beast,” which is an eight-foot-high, redbrick wall with a couple of knotted ropes dangling to help them climb over it. Kate barely managed to scale the Beast, with the help of the guy she termed Butt Pusher, who seemed to relish his self-imposed chore. Bringing up the rear, (pun intended) Marnie attempts the wall, with the help of Kate, Butt Pusher and another helpful woman, but to no avail. She could not make it.
Evil Erica, one of the DI’s informs Marnie that she must report to Darwin Innova, Body Blast’s program director, who will more than likely assign her to Remedial Fitness with the nice DI, Hillary. Marnie is blown away with the news that Darwin Innova is working at Body Blast. She seems to have a history with him, but not a nice one. Kate tried prompting her with more questions, but Marnie only shook her head. Whatever juicy tidbit she had on this Darwin guy, she was keeping it to herself.
Later that evening, after a dinner of disgustingly bland food, Kate is returning to her room, only to pass a room where she hears raised voices and recognizes one as Marnie’s. Crying! The door opens and Kate comes face to face with Darwin. Marnie takes this as her chance to escape in Kate’s presence. They return to their room, where Marnie has a total meltdown and gulps down the major portion of a large bag of M & M’s that she had stashed in the bottom of her bag. Kate tries to help her body buddy in some way, but Marnie takes out her cellphone and asks Kate to give her a little bit of privacy. When Kate returns, Marnie is not in the room, and Kate retires for the night, gulping down two TylenolPMs to ease the pain of the Eval Course and help her get some well needed sleep.
The next morning, after not showing up for breakfast, Marnie is discovered dead…from a broken neck, sprawled at the base of that evil wall The Beast. Kate is suspicious of both Darwin AND the Alpha Male ex-boyfriend, until she discovers that Marnie wasn’t the FIRST guest to die of a broken neck under suspicious circumstances at Body Blast. Riley, Kate’s friend admits that there are other strange events happening at Body Blast and he would like her help finding out why he feels he and his business are under attack.
This starts us on a whirwind ride-along with a TV Investigative Reporter, showing us how she gathers information and puts it together for the smooth finished product that we see on the evening news. What she goes through is NOT smooth, nor easy going, especially when she finds out that she must deal with Park Service Rangers, rather than cops. Cops she is used to dealing with, “but her knowledge of park rangers was based mostly on childhood cartoons with picnic basket-stealing bears,” to steal our Author’s savory way of putting it!
Our Author, Ms Lilley has a sense of humor unequaled in the realm of who-dun-it’s. The exploits of her characters had me laughing out loud, luckily I had the sense to swallow the snacks in my mouth at the time, or the pages of this book would not be fit for a second reading!
As an example of our author’s wonderful sense of humor, when Kate was told that she cannot use a bit of information in her news story, she says (I quote) “ ‘I won’t use anything. Scouts word of honor.’ I made a facsimile of the Girl Scout finger sign. Or maybe it was Mr. Spock’s Vulcan sign. Whichever. I meant it.”
Now, THAT is humor!
The entire story is not fun and games and does deal with many unsavory aspects of life, like sexual harassment, predators who prey on the young, men who use the “F-word” (FAT) against the women they had recently professed to love, drug busts in the supposedly pristine Smokey Mountains, (which begs the question…is this WHY they are called the SMOKEY mountains??) Sorry…I couldn’t resist that!
Kathryn Lilley handles ALL these topics well, and works them smoothly into the story, in and around all those delicious bits of humor! This is a MUST READ book…and I am off now to find the book that came before this one, “Dying to be Thin” which is Ms. Lilley’s first “Fat City Book.” If that one is as good as this one, I am in for another good read!! Pick up your copy of both books today. If you use the money you would have used to buy that big bag of candy or that big box of donuts, you will have a WONDERFUL time without gaining an ounce!