The Hawthorne Group

Hauser's ( The Beethoven Conspiracy ) latest thriller is a tepid narrative delivered by angst-ridden Anne Rhodes, a 39-year-old actress who has traded her career in the theater for the security of a corporate job. Content with her ``part administrative and part clerical'' position in the Hawthorne Corporation, an energy commodities company, Rhodes soon becomes suspicious of her employers. Security is so tight that cameras are prohibited in the workplace and shredded documents are further reduced to pulp. After fellow worker Michael Harney allegedly commits suicide to end his suffering from a terminal disease, Rhodes is approached by Ned Connor of the National Security Agency, who informs her that Harney was working undercover for the NSA and was in fact murdered. Connor enlists Rhodes in the government's infiltration of the Hawthorne Group, a front for an organization building nuclear weapons--weapons that soon will be auctioned off to Third World countries. Rhodes is not sufficiently likable to carry the book; despite the hour-by-hour countdown, action and suspense are minimal, the ending disappointing. (May)