ONE SHOT

When Lorrie Taylor moves to live with her father, she takes a summer job working with Elaine, her new stepmother. Elaine, a lawyer, is organizing the estate of a famous, elderly and now-reclusive photographer and asks Lorrie to help by "sorting through papers, moving around boxes, possibly getting the house ready to sell." Molly Price may be abrasive, but 15-year-old Lorrie, a budding photographer herself, is immediately drawn to her work, which hangs throughout the rundown house. Debut novelist Glick provides rich details—there are poignant descriptions of photographs, such as Molly's pictures of a soldier in Vietnam ("In the subsequent shots, the baseball cap was replaced by a helmet, and the football by a big ugly gun")—and insightful comments about photography in general. However, the plot follows an easily foreseen trajectory, and the subplots are not fully flushed out. As Molly and Lorrie warm to one another, Molly offers the use of a basement darkroom, some teaching and even stories from her past. Lorrie immerses herself in shooting and printing, trying to take pictures that "say something." But when Molly slips into a coma, Lori initially avoids visiting her in the hospital and stays away from the darkroom, where Molly suffered her stroke. While Lorrie's metamorphosis into someone "shooting for herself" builds credibly (and will especially interest readers who share Lorrie's interest in photography), other developments create a melodramatic effect (e.g., the boy with leukemia who uses Lorrie's camera to take memorable pictures of his friends in the hospital). Ultimately, while many of Glick's descriptions of Molly's photos and Lorrie's shoots provide lasting images, the tangents, and the predictable relationship between the photographer and the teen, drain some of the story's strength. Ages 12-up. (May)