SEVENTH AVENUE UNDRESSED

A young fashion industry hopeful learns hard lessons in life and business in Thompson’s novel.

The author parlays her decades of experience in New York City’s fashion industry into this crafty, provocative novel. In 1979, Cathy Callahan, a pretty Fashion Institute of Technology grad, diligently works at Starlight, a moderately priced eveningwear fashion house, but she dreams about launching her own line. Her roommates, Heather and Julie, also have high hopes for careers in the field, but all three are simultaneously disillusioned and terrified when they learn of the stranglehold organized crime families have on the fashion industry at large. After Starlight’s owner is murdered, the business closes, and Cathy moves on to work at another house, an opportunity that ends disastrously with a sexual harassment ordeal. A summer share in the Hamptons seems like the perfect respite, as Cathy falls for dashing, wealthy Wall Street investment banker Matt Sullivan, who’s more than prepared to financially and emotionally support her entrepreneurial aspirations. When her new eveningwear line is featured in Women’s Wear Daily, a firestorm of attention ensues as increasingly brazen Mafia hits occur around Manhattan. When the racketeers sniff out the amount of revenue her line is generating, they begin to infiltrate Cathy’s business operations, but she’s become both street-smart and business-savvy enough to outsmart them. Or has she? With vivid details, swift plotting, and crisp dialogue, Thompson writes with knowledgeable authority, effectively capturing the flare, flash, and wild decadence of the glittery era of the early 1980s, name-checking all of the iconic designers who made waves on the runways and on the Studio 54 dance floor. Beneath the melodrama and cutthroat antics (“A large meat hook hung by a one-inch-thick wire bolted to the ceiling. In the corner of one wall hung an array of torture tools”), the novel also makes statements about women in business and their enduring struggle to be seen, heard, and taken seriously. The sweet happy ending will please romance fans, but the cautionary themes simmering at the novel’s core give it credibility and grit.

A thrilling, memorable tale of struggle, style, and organized crime.