Who would leave a highly respected, hard-won position as an investigative journalist at one of London’s top newspapers for a job at a fashion rag? That’s the question on everyone’s mind when Annie Anderson announces she’s making the move. True, the last few months have been tough on Annie, who remains haunted by memories of an undercover sting gone wrong that left an innocent woman dead. But a glossy magazine? It just doesn’t seem very Annie. Her colleagues assume she’s lost it, but Annie has her secret reasons.

After a few days at Handbag, Annie realizes that being a fashion editor is going to be much harder than she ever anticipated. Thrown into the heart of New York Fashion Week, she is unprepared for her new world’s bewildering hierarchy–though she’s becoming increasingly familiar with “that fashion feeling” she gets when facing constant comparisons to the über-thin, ultra-glam women around her. It would be easier working in a war zone than getting the right seat at the Marc Jacobs show.

But if there’s one thing Annie knows, it’s interviewing. So when she scores an exclusive with the hot up-and-coming designer Mark Mailer, she’s back on familiar ground. The gossip du jour has Mark and his supermodel girlfriend Patty Lang on the outs after Patty’s disastrous and very public return to her first love: heroin. Annie senses there’s much more to the story, but before she can coax Mark to open up, he’s dead–shot before Annie’s eyes in what appears to be attempted robbery.

Though shaken, Annie believes that Mark’s death was anything but random, and a grief-stricken Patty agrees. From New York to London to Milan, while taking on a tyrannical boss, slick-as-oil PR execs, and egomaniacal designers with the depth of a linen blouse, Annie searches for answers. But in the pursuit of a good story, Annie must not lose sight of her common sense–or the consequences could make her the next fashion victim.