Fashioning fiction that's set behind the scenes

By Samantha Critchell
Associated Press

Over the next few months, a beach bag full of new books look at the fashion industry through eyes that are insider enough to know the juicy details.

Cosmopolitan editor in chief Kate White sends Gloss magazine reporter and amateur sleuth Bailey Weggins to a fancy spa in "A Body To Die For," the second book of her murder-mystery series.

"I took a day off from work to think about my next book, and I booked a facial and a massage. While I was waiting in the room for the facial lady, I looked around at all the equipment and I said, 'God, you really could kill someone with this stuff.' "

Bingo!

Another bonus: The research was quite enjoyable.

"I tried hot stones, salt scrubs, different wraps. I probably had 40 (spa) treatments ... and I didn't feel guilty for indulging," White says.

As for making Weggins a journalist instead of a police officer or private detective, White says most authors do write about what they know. "My goal wasn't to write a book about my business but it's what I do. It took a lot less research."

White is working on a third Weggins mystery; it takes place at a wedding.

Other fashion-themed novels include:

"Elegance" by Kathleen Tessaro, William Morrow: Louise Canova, a woman desperately in need of a pick-me-up — her husband is inattentive, her career is going nowhere — finds what she needs at a second-hand book shop. There, a copy of a 1964 advice encyclopedia sits with all the answers to her woes.

Using the slightly dated principles of elegance, Louise transforms herself and her life.

In some ways the story mimics Tessaro's own experience with a 1960s self-help manual that she, too, found in a used bookstore.

Tessaro's curiosity about the book launched a search for the author. She found Antoine Genevieve Dariaux living on the French Riviera as elegantly as ever.

"The Devil Wears Prada" by Lauren Weisberger, Doubleday: Weisberger, a former assistant at Vogue, writes about Andrea, an assistant at Runway magazine. Andrea is at the beck and call of Miranda, the magazine's demanding editor who has a closet that rivals the racks of Bergdorf Goodman and shouts out commands with a British accent that makes Andrea cringe.

It's probably no coincidence that Vogue's real life editor in chief, Anna Wintour, has one of the best wardrobes and figures in the business — and speaks with a British accent.

Andrea gets her revenge, and it seems Weisberger does too with this book that already has sold film rights.

"Fashionistas" by Lynn Messina, Red Dress Ink: This behind-the-scenes tale is set at Fashionista (a magazine about nothing, according to our heroine Vig Morgan). The story opens with her demanding and difficult editor asking Vig to find a model with the same unflattering figure as Vig to use for a makeover story.

"We'd use you," says Jane MacNeill, "but company policy prevents us from employing our own employees. I could fire you, but then I'd have to go through the hassle of finding another assistant, which is twenty minutes I don't have."

The underlings' plan for vigilante justice goes down an unexpected runway that's sure to be the buzz of the industry.

"Shopaholic Ties the Knot," by Sophie Kinsella, Delta trade paperback: Self-described "shopaholic" Becky Bloomwood takes on the most important retail assignment of her life: planning a wedding — two, in fact. That means dresses, flowers, invitations and Christian Louboutin white satin stilettos.