Prism

This first collaboration between bestselling mystery author Faye Kellerman and her teenage daughter Aliza has an enticing premise but falls short. After a van accident in the desert during a school trip, high schooler Kaida Hutchenson and two classmates seek shelter in a cave and have the mysterious sensation of falling as they seek an exit. Kaida then wakes up in her own bedroom, thinking the past events are a dream. Everything seems normal (she awakens to Metallica on the radio) until she witnesses a white-robed “cleanup crew” take away an injured man who's been hit by a car. With some investigation and help from a cute boy, Kaida discovers that she is in an alternate dimension where medicine and health care are illegal, and where those who go against the natural order of the world are dealt with in a Big Brother–like manner. Though the slow-building mystery is handled deftly, the execution of the mirror world feels simplistic, with the authors basically sidestepping the broader ramifications that a lack of medicine would have had on human society over time. Ages 12–up. (July)