Playing It Cool

Sebastian Montero, 18, is the go-to guy when there's trouble. On the first day Dorfman's (Burning City ) story takes place, Sebastian sets up a date for a lonely friend, delivers another to and from her appointment at an abortion clinic and talks a jumper down from a rooftop. His major project is reuniting best friend Jeremy with his long-lost father, Dromio, who abandoned him years earlier. Sebastian, also fatherless, has called in favors to track down and assemble a dossier on Dromio, a Robin Hood–style do-gooder (like Sebastian?) who runs a restaurant where anybody can eat for 25 cents, but most people vastly overpay in order to distinguish themselves from those who can't. In a cockamamy scheme, the two buddies switch identities before meeting Dromio, just in case he turns out to be a cad. If all this sound a tad implausible, it is. Like his main character, Dorfman's narrative has too much going on. Everybody speaks in clever repartée (at one point, Sebastian asks, "Is there anyone in this town who can't quote Ambrose Bierce?" and the answer is, apparently, no). Still, there's a hipster cadence to Sebastian's present-tense narration, and a window into the adulterated world of grown-ups that might appeal to teen voyeurs willing to ignore the abundance of coincidences that fuels the plot. Ages 12-up. (May)