Brothers

Thompson (Shepherd; The Grounding of Group 6) overreaches in this ambitious but awkward study of sibling relationships, mental illness and white-supremacist cults. Seventeen-year-old Chris Craven, fatherless since age six, has always looked up to his older brother, Cam. Chris is shocked to learn that Cam did not leave college because of exhaustion, but because he suffered some kind of breakdown. Now Cam has disappeared from Gramercy Manor, the institution where he was being treated. Determined to find his big brother, Chris begins a cross-country trek with two new acquaintances: Michelle, who knew Cam at Gramercy Manor and has clues to his whereabouts, and Michelle's little sister, Millie. The trio's westward journey--lengthy enough to establish Millie's blossoming romance with Chris and her concerns about Michelle--ends inside an anti-government compound where Cam has settled. Chris knows he must immediately take charge in order to bring Cam out of danger. The author draws some thought-provoking parallels between Chris and Millie, as each acts as caretaker and protector for an older sibling. But the beginning suffers from plausibility problems (for example, Cam's mother is supposedly content to let her troubled, explosive son simply disappear) and the pacing in the middle is sluggish; readers may not stick around for Thompson's hard look at the differences between nonconformity, disturbed behavior and fanaticism. Ages 14-16. (Nov.)