Reality Check
Grade 9 Up&mdash;Set in Little Bend, CO, and North Dover, VT, Abrahams's novel follows Cody, 16, who sustains a serious knee injury that leaves him on the bench during the most important recruiting year in his high school career. With no college scholarship in sight, he drops out of school. When his rich girlfriend, Clea, is reported missing from her Vermont boarding school, he drives East to find her and endangers himself in the process. Though not as complicated as Abrahams's adult novels,Reality Checkis a solid mystery reminiscent of Carol Plum-Ucci'sThe Body of Christopher Creed(Harcourt, 2000) or Nancy Werlin'sThe Killer's Cousin(Delacorte, 1998). That Cody is a country boy and a dropout both complicate and inform his detective persona; the realization that "with the exception of football" he was wasting his time in school sends him "some message about a whole different way for him to look at things, to live." It is this "whole different way" that allows Cody&mdash;a fish out of water among wealthy Dover Academy students&mdash;to solve the mystery, though not before a red herring is revealed and a surprise villain is unmasked.&mdash;Amy S. Pattee, Simmons College, BostonCopyright &copy; Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.--This text refers to theHardcoveredition.