Book review Chic-lit

Book review, Conditioned to Death, by C. K. Cambray

It was a rare moment that drove me to chick-lit.  This piece of chick-lit was in a special genre all of its own as it also serves as a murder mystery.

The protagonist, Dawn Gray, is a co-owner of a downtown U.S. health club.  Two accidental deaths within the club premises are quickly followed by three murders.  Along the way Dawn is threatened with death, subject to violence and proposed offers of ownership buy-out.  Dawn’s paramour count accumulates as fast as the death rate.  One-by-one the paramours met every possible variety: the wealthy one, the skinny Buddhist influenced masseur, and the giant body builder.

By about three quarters of the way through the book I was compelled to keep reading only to know who copped it first.  Would the health club fail from the steady departure of members who feared for their own lives amidst the murders?  Would Dawn finally meet the perfect man and sail off into the sunset? Would the hulk of the body builder crack the skinny masseur’s skull?  Then there was the plod, who seemingly followed every lead yet never found a culprit.  Would the lieutenant reach a solution by the end of the book?

Dawn, with her multiple romances, her suspect-everyone-mind, and her perfect-gym-toned-body-but-poor-business-acumen struck me as an impeccable Trump voter.  She certainly would have voted to Brexit.

The book was published in 1992, the year that U.S. President George H. W. Bush fell violently ill at a state dinner in Japan.  It was the year that U.S.Vice President Dan Quayle erroneously corrects a student's spelling of the word potato, indicating it should have an e at the end.  In amongst such monumental events, the suffering of a fictional U.S. health club would hardly have caused a ripple.

Shalom,

Ozhamada

All links good 30 June 2016