Table for Five

Funny, bright and self-effacing, British freelance TV producer Charlie Kavanagh is also, unfortunately, an incurable romantic. In this amusing but ultimately unconvincing first novel by an Irish writer, that lack of guile eventually rings false. When the very attractive and available Julia Cornwall invites him to produce a program she is shooting in Israel, Charlie packs his bags with scarcely a moment's notice and nary a second thought. What, after all, could be bad? The woman is smart and beautiful and clearly wants more from Charlie than mere cinematic expertise. The show she is working on, The Last Supper , promises to have far-ranging political repercussions. A live interview with Israeli foreign minister David Bermant is to feature four surprise dinner guests, who will question him on topics both personal and professional, and is scheduled to air the night before Bermant delivers a major speech at the U.N. But even after Charlie discovers that Julia has doctored his resume to get him the job, even after the lobby of a hotel she's sent him to blows up, all Charlie can think is ``God. . . . But she was lovely.'' Just who is this woman and why does she bring such peril to him? By the time Charlie finally comes to his senses, the reader is too frustrated to care much. Although quickened by droll humor and clever repartee, nicely detailed with local color, this thriller never manages to transcend lovelorn Charlie's tunnel vision. (June)