Chain a Lamb Chop to the Bed — Denise Dietz

Weight Winners, in Colorado Springs, is a support group for people who want to lose weight. Ellie Bernstein is its group leader. When Ellie's significant other, Peter Miller, a homicide detective with the C.S.P.D., invites her to vacation with him for one "stress-free" week at a dude ranch outside Aspen, she accepts with trepidation. She suffers from acrophobia and tends to avoid such sports as sky diving, skiing, bungee jumping, and horseback riding. Just before Peter and Ellie leave for Aspen, an elderly man is killed in his home. What makes the crime unique is that the face on the victim's advertised, for-sale painting was slashed with a knife. What makes the crime even more unique is that the woman with the slashed face is a dead ringer for Ellie. Ellie, who feels she gets along with just about anybody, quickly makes four enemies: the ranch manager, Duke Dombroski, who has a John Wayne fetish; the riding instructor, Kit Halliday, who wears a size three and has a crush on Peter; the plump cook, Rosa Hamilton, who loathes Ellie for no apparent reason; and a fat white horse named Buttermilk. A dead body found near the ranch's ravine would ordinarily jump-start Ellie's sleuthing skills. Only this time she's in unfamiliar territory. She's never been to Aspen before; she knew and adored the victim - a world-renowned Aspen artist - and, to make matters worse, the wife who jump-started his career seems to be missing. Nevertheless, Ellie desperately needs to find the "art patron" who murdered her friend, and she needs to make friends with a black stallion named Satan . . . before the weight loss she's achieved becomes permanent in a way she's never imagined.

Denise Dietz is the bestselling author of several novels, including Eye of Newt. She lives on Vancouver Island with her husband, novelist Gordon Aalborg, and her mostly Norwegian Elkhound, Pandora.