Every Step You Take [Hardcover]

Judith Kelman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 11, 2003

It was just supposed to be a story line - something to please her demanding new editor.

But as Claire Barrow sat at her computer, outlining a plot about identity theft, fiction was becoming reality. She is still beset with grief over the death of her policeman husband and struggling to raise her increasingly truculent stepdaughter. Now Claire must face the frightening truth that someone is appropriating her own identity, piece by piece. And, in a hideous twist of criminal injustice, she could become the ultimate victim.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Kelman (Someone's Watching; Summer of Storms; etc.) saddles her protagonist, New York writer Claire Barrow, with a heap of problems in this knotty suspense thriller. Claire's police detective husband has committed suicide, leaving her to care for his rebellious teenage daughter; her money and her identity have been stolen; her mother is depressed; her beloved editor has disappeared, leaving her with a nasty new one who doesn't like her work; an old flame is becoming increasingly persistent; a street preacher rants outside her house night and day; and she's got a bad case of writer's block. Then her computer crashes and wipes out all her files. If this sounds like more than any character, real or fictional, should reasonably be expected to deal with, it is. And to top things off, the serial killer her husband fought to put behind bars, B.B. LeBeau, aka the Eel, has just been released from prison on a technicality. The Eel has somehow become the darling of an imbecilic press, and the police are inexplicably powerless to intervene as he begins hunting down everyone who had anything to do with his incarceration, including the unlucky Claire. Accompanying these woes is a gaggle of secondary characters whose primary purpose appears to be to get killed. It's almost as if Kelman feels she's lost control of her book, and thus uses Claire to voice her concerns: "A writer could get trapped in that murky twilight between her invention and herself." An implausible ending drives the last stake through the heart of an effort that fails to live up to Kelman's usual high standards.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

From the title's riff on the disturbing stalker song by the Police through the excruciating accumulation of tiny incursions that add up to identity theft, this thriller hits all the right notes. Avoiding an overly Kafkaesque tone, Kelman writes, above all, a novel of character. Author Claire Barrow is the widow of a cop, the stepmother of a problematic teen, and the "orphan" of her longtime editor, who has been ousted from the publishing house. Her new editor demands a book proposal starring a current issue, and Barrow comes up with a novel in which the heroine's life is ripped off. Then her own life begins to mirror that of her heroine's, culminating in a murder charge based on Barrow's license plate. Barrow's reactions to the theft of a life that, with her husband's death, had lost its value are intriguingly complex. Her fight for her life, on both levels, escalates the action from the computer screen to reverse tailing and beautifully choreographed climax. This thirteenth Kelman thriller is a true nail-biter. Connie Fletcher
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Putnam Adult; F edition (September 11, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0399151095
• ISBN-13: 978-0399151095
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,316,216 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing, August 2, 2004

By 

Julie Levenhagen (Wisconsin) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Every Step You Take (Hardcover)

I had high hopes for this novel when I saw that my favorite author, Harlan Coben, found it to be "a powerhouse of a thriller". His recommendation was all I needed to pick up the book. However, after reading "Every Step You Take", all I can say is that Coben may be a brilliant author, but when it comes to reviewing novels, he is far too generous.
This novel was not worth the work it took to read. There were so many subplots mixed in that all I was left with was a flurry of inconsequential characters to muddle through. Although the character of murderer B.B. Lebeau had the potential to be fascinating, the author never fully developed this.
This novel continuously hinted at there being more to its plot, but never reached its potential. The ending was especially unsatisfactory, as it was implausible and even ridiculous. Motives given for crimes committed were weak and absurd.
This novel was, unfortunately, a letdown.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great book but ridiculous ending, April 23, 2004

By 

Janet Gerber (New Jersey) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Every Step You Take (Hardcover)

I have read 5 of Judith Kelman's books so far, and enjoyed every one. This one was particularly gripping. HOWEVER, every ending so far has been ridiculous. I have come to realize that this author always leaves loose ends hanging, and always has an ending that doesn't make sense. However, I am still happy to read her books - the enjoyment I get for 95% of the book more than compensates for the weak endings.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A confusing mishmash with a very weird ending., October 20, 2003

By 

E. Bukowsky "booklover10" (NY United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Every Step You Take (Hardcover)

The only good thing that I can say about "Every Step You Take," the new thriller by Judith Kelman, is that the author had the germ of a good idea at the beginning of the novel. The heroine, Claire Barrow, becomes a widow after her police officer husband, Noah, apparently takes his life. It seems that Noah was despondent after being accused of witness tampering and obstructing justice while investigating an important case involving a vicious serial killer.

Claire's life subsequently goes from bad to worse. Her teenaged stepdaughter, Rainey, becomes increasingly rebellious, and Claire, who is under contract to write a new novel, gets a new editor who resembles Attila the Hun. So far, so good.

Unfortunately, Kelman is not content to explore the themes of Noah's death, Claire's struggle to be a competent single parent, and her efforts to write a new novel. The author brings in a host of other plotlines, including one about a scraggly dog that Claire takes in, another about the theft of Claire's identity, still another about a club of forensic experts who are looking into the same murders that Noah had been investigating, another about a disreputable boyfriend of Claire's stepdaughter, and yet another about an aunt who tries to civilize Rainey.

This book becomes increasingly busy until it reaches an ending that is so outlandish that it left me scratching my head in bewilderment. I have nothing against surprise endings, as long as they flow logically from previous events. That is not the case here. "Every Step You Take" loses its way after a promising beginning and never recovers.