Exposure

Veteran thriller writer Anthony ( The Doll's House ) deftly introduces suspenseful intrigue on the very first page of her new novel and maintains the narrative tension throughout. Julia Hamilton is an aggressive journalist on a top London newspaper whose shrewdly manipulative editor and publisher, Sir William Western, has big plans for her. She is to head an investigative column called ``Exposure,'' and her first target is the hugely successful communications tycoon Harold King. Ruthless, power-hungry and utterly corrupt, King has kept his private life and his unsavory past well concealed--with the help of a small band of hired killers. As Julia and her boss, Ben Harris (also her lover), travel through Germany and England delving into King's background, they are shaken by the brutal murder of a potential witness and become aware that they themselves are being stalked. Opposition to their insistent prying comes from an unexpected quarter when they discover that Western has his own secrets to protect. An impossibly larger-than-life villain and a saccharine portrait of Julia's family blunt the story's edges, but provocative entanglements and some sharply defined politicians and journalists who skirt the edges of decency sustain interest until the finale. (Mar.)