Fingerprints #1: Gifted Touch

Despite its fast pace and original premise, the debut novel of the Fingerprints series makes a less than memorable impression. When Rae starts to hear voices in her head, she is convinced that she is slipping into insanity, just as her deceased mother had apparently done. After having what appears to be a breakdown in her high school cafeteria, Rae is temporarily hospitalized for paranoiac delusions. Given the title of both the series and the book, and the circumstances under which Rae hears the ""not-her thoughts,"" their source soon becomes apparent to readers: whenever the teen touches an object, she experiences the thoughts of individuals who have touched it previously. Metz (the Roswell High series) ratchets up the implausibility when a pipe bomb explodes dangerously close to Rae at the hospital where she attends group therapy sessions. Knowing from one of her internal voices that someone has it out for her, she is determined to track down the culprit and exonerate the friend who has been falsely accused of planting the bomb. Readers may find it frustrating that the villain's identity remains a mystery at the end, as do the circumstances of Rae's mother's decline. Presumably these items will be divulged in a subsequent installment, but the audience's willingness to return remains in question. Ages 12-up. (Apr.)