Book Description
Wheelchair bound columnist Nick "Stick" Foster is about to marry his soul-mate-on-wheels, Samantha, when aged Martha Galliger sips the wedding punch she made herself and succumbs to a lacing of crack, PCP, and amphetamines. Suspicion falls on the wedding guests as well as on the folks from the mall (Stick's latest article assignment). Was it the mob-connected pizza maker, a shopkeeper in the federal witness relocation program, or one of the "mall rats," punk kids who hang out at the mall? When a security guard is killed ater identifying one of the "Rats" as a drug dealer the suspect hides out in the mall ducts until he can clear his name. It's up to Stick to solve the mystery and avoid becoming "chummy" with the alligators.

About the Author
Kevin Robinson is a freelance writer/photographer, a mystery novelist, and a former syndicated columnist for the Detroit Free press. He holds a BSED. degree from Geneva College, and was teaching at a Florida boy's ranch in 1975 when a dock rail ing collapsed and left him paralyzed from the chest down, with little or no control of his fingers. Only the ring finger of his left hand was usable enough to type with, but after three mystery novels, hundreds of magazine articles and a new co-authored Self-Help book called GETTING REAL: The Road to Personal Redemption, that fragile resource simply wore out. Robinson currently uses a rubber band to hold his overworked typing finger in place. When he's not writing, or managing No Bull Productions (the hudson-valley publicity/promotion firm he co-owns), kevin can be found sitting in on blues harp (harmonica) with the Dallas Fisher Band in and around New York City.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

A wheelchair wedding kicks of Robinson's ( Split Seconds ) somewhat disappointing second Stick Foster mystery. Paraplegic Florida journalist Stick, the groom, and his ravishing lawyer bride (also wheelchair-bound) are upstaged when an elderly woman in the congregation dies from punch laced with ``crack, PCP and amphetamine.'' Suspicion instantly falls on six other wedding guests--the troubled adolescents, called mall rats, whom Stick befriended while doing a ``mall life'' newspaper series. Also present are a young man who suffers from Downs syndrome, a graying FBI agent, an entire wheelchair basketball team and many more of Stick's mixed bag of pals. A story so filled with love and respect for those who are different from the societal norms--minorities, deprived youngsters, the mentally and physically handicapped--and packing a hefty dollop of adventure, too, seems likely to engage the reader. But there are too many characters, indistinctly portrayed, and too much gratuitous activity delaying a nevertheless rousing climax. Also on the plus side: Robinson, disabled himself, gives a graphic account of the technicalities of life in a wheelchair. Author tour. (June)

Library Journal

Empathy for neglected children and the disabled notwithstanding, Robinson's book suffers from a disorganized and disappointing approach to sleuthing. Wheelchair-bound journalist ``Stick'' Foster has befriended a group of so-called ``mall rats.'' When someone poisons an apparently harmless spinster at Stick's wedding reception, suspicion inevitably falls on the mall rats attending. As Foster sets out to discover the true murderer--aided by his handicapped but worldly wife Samantha and the ``rats''--he almost gets himself killed by the easily recognizable villain. Skippable.

School Library Journal