Rattlesnake Romeo
Suburban Tampa divorced mother Vicki Robinson was active in a church singles group, had a steady boyfriend, and was otherwise rebuilding her life. Her daughter Valessa, 15, was into goth fashion and did drugs with 19-year-old boyfriend Adam. One LSD-altered night, Valessa, Adam, and another boy killed Vicki and hit the road in her minivan. Staying in area motels and using Vicki's ATM and credit cards, they at first had the cops thinking they had a missing persons case. Locating neither Vicki nor Valessa, they suspected Adam of foul play. Realizing they were being sought, the teens headed west, to be captured in Texas. Wellman recounts this tale of woe from various points of view and sympathetically parses Valessa's confusing motivations and Adam's and the other boy's bizarre bravado and stupidity. Occasionally, focus falls victim to a welter of detail, but this effective true-crimer benefits greatly from the contrast between Vicki's striving and dreams of familial bliss and the teens' nihilistic existence centered on imbibing psychedelics at the local Denny's. Truly disturbing and cautionary.Mike TribbyCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved