One Fifth Avenue

By Lynn Bronikowski, Special to the Rocky

Published September 18, 2008 at 7 p.m.

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* Fiction. By Candace Bushnell. Hyperion Voice, $24.95. Grade: C+

Plot in a nutshell: Bushnell's latest glimpse into the world of New York women is like peeking in on Sex and the City when the characters have hit middle age - only rather than using the whole city has her venue, she roosts in One Fifth Avenue, an Art Deco building in the hip West Village, a place that characters fight to get into and where they collide once they're there.

There's the aging gossip columnist, the actress who lands a hit TV series, the cheating husband, the hedge-fund king's socialite wife, the social climbing couple and their tech-savvy teen, the art dealer who gushes over the wealthy and, of course, the 20-something who wants to be just like Carrie Bradshaw.

It all adds up to catty chick lit with a little mystery thrown in when an antique artisan cross - stolen from the Met - winds its way to One Fifth Avenue. It's no Da Vinci Code, but the twist adds suspense and helps move the story along.

Sample of prose: With the building a key player in the story, Bushnell takes readers inside with descriptions such as this of the penthouse: "The ceiling was a dome, sixteen feet high; at one end was an enormous marble fireplace. (Social climber) Mindy's heart beat faster. She'd always dreamed of living in an apartment like this, with a room like this, an aerie with three hundred and sixty-degree views of all of Manhattan. The light was astounding. Every New Yorker wanted light, and few had it. If she lived here, in this apartment, instead of the half-basement warren of rooms her family now occupied, maybe for once in her life she could be happy."

Pros: It's contemporary and up-to-date, down to references to the mortgage crisis bringing down real estate values in New York, Oprah, the real-world gossip blogger Gawker and stock-market doings. Bushnell also writes vivid descriptions of the book's "star," the circa 1918 building, from its tiny, one-bedroom apartments to its two-story penthouse with grand ballrooms.

Cons: The characters are cliched and not particularly endearing, memorable, heroic or funny. And Bushnell's references to Carrie Bradshaw and Sex and the City seem almost like cross-marketing product placements, or an attempt to crank out the book to play on the success of the movie and its release to DVD.

Final word: This is a breezy beach read about middle age - which, when you get down to it, is kind of boring.

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