Customer Reviews

One False Move (Mira S.)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Reading this book is a great way to spend a rainy Sunday afternoon. While it was a quick read, it was still very intriguing and suspenseful and I never lost interest. The story came together quite nicely and I was pleased with the outcome (including a nice little twist at the end.) This is the kind of book you could read while waiting in line at the DMV. Definitely recommend this one.

Alex Kava's first free-standing suspense novel freely adapts from the author's personal experience, adding on elements of the Charles Starkweather murder spree, to create a story of violence and confusion on a sprawl across Nebraska that harkens back to the bleak despair of Terrence Malick's "Badlands" and Bruce Springsteen's "Nebraska."

Jared Barnett, freed from Death Row by a crooked lawyer and a coerced testimony, teams with his sister, a small-time con woman, and her son, a professional shoplifter. They arrange to rob a bank to pay off Jared's debts, but when shots are fired and four people are left for dead, they sprint for the country. Crime novelist Andrew Kane has isolated himself at Platte River State Park, trying to kick-start his newest novel, but his isolation turns on him when the three killers stumble on his nest and take him hostage.

Platte River State Park is real, as is the Nebraska Bank of Commerce branch the killers mishandle, and the towns of Auburn and Hastings, where key moments of the plot take place. It's disconcerting to think that I may have slept in the cabin where Andrew Kane was taken hostage. The novel clips along at a short pace, with scenes so cinematic that I can almost see the blackouts and the camera pulling focus. By releasing hints of the characters' past in measured amounts and making us wonder where their loyalties lie, Alex Kava keeps the pages turning to the end.

There's nothing really new or revolutionary in this novel. It's probably not a classic of the genre. But it is well-paced, intriguing, peopled with interesting characters, and a cracking good read. Good airport reading or something to keep in your desk for your coffee breaks, this novel is a worthwhile investment for fans of suspense fiction.

Having been an enthusiastic fan ever since I accidently got a hold of her first book I now have to say that I was somewhat disappointed on her latest book.

The characters were "ok", but the entity certainly lacked certain elements of suspense and thrill. I really look forward hearing more of Maggie!

This is one of those books that's hard to judge. Alex Kava has proven in her Maggie O'Dell novels that she is a good writer, giving us complex plots and characters we care about.
In ONE FALSE MOVE, Kava leaves O'Dell behind and focuses on a dark story involving a mother and her son, who have been thieves all their lives, and her recently released brother, who had a fancy lawyer get him off death row for murder. We know that Jared Barnett, the killer, did kill the young lady, and now he's out to repay his lawyer's debt. Also involved is a prosecutor named Grace, a cop named Tommy Pakula and a writer named Andrew Kane. While the narrative is well written, ultimately one has to step back and admit that Melanie, Charlie and Jared are not likeable characters, and that's who we spend the most time with.
Once again, abused children are forgiven for their behavior because they suffered so much. And even with the "trick ending," we knew all along who was really responsible for the Barnett's father's murder. Melanie lets her brother control her; let's her brother ruin her 18 year old son's life; and stands by while her brother and her son murder innocent people. And then in the end, mother and son get off pretty easy, in spite of what they've done.
So, here you have a well written novel, but I can't agree with Kava's message here.
I look forward to her return to the O'Dell series.

There is a difference between "not guilty" and "innocent". Crossing that fine line releases Jared Barret from prison, returning him to his sister's life, drawing Melanie and her son Charlie into a crime spree that results in murder. Now the three are on the run, guilty of murder, bank robbery, and hostage taking. Behind them, the police search for the truth, and nothing but fear lies ahead.

**** Going in a new direction from her Maggie O'Dell stories, Alex Kava takes readers on a tense and wild ride. Fans of Grisham or Turrow will appreciate this new dimension to her writing. ****

Reviewed by Amanda Killgore for Huntress Reviews.

The family that slays together stays together. Or, Family ties that bind may sometimes become a hangman's noose.

Melanie Starks has been living on the con with her seventeen year old son for most of his life. Now her brother Jared is out of prison on a legal technicality, and she quickly finds herself in serious trouble. Never having used a gun before, she's now running from several law enforcement agencies after an apparently botched bank robbery in a small town in Nebraska. The rest of the book spends a good deal of time and energy with long explanations of Melanie's philosophy, her self justification for the life of crime she is living, and her unwillingness to see that she is in large part responsible for the situation with which she now must deal. Like any mother she worries about her son. Now she's beginning to feel her son Charlie is enjoying his life of minor crimes entirely too much.

Once the bank robbery goes bad, Melanie decides she wants to get out of the game altogether. Unfortunately it's now entirely too late. She and Charlie are on the run from the cops and Federal authorities for multiple murders and attempted bank robbery. Although up to now she's been portrayed as a strong and even admirable--if bent--mother figure, now that brother Jared is back in her life, he becomes the controlling figure with little resistance from Melanie. And always in the background is the shadowy figure of Max Kramer, Jared's criminal defense attorney.

One is disposed to feel some sympathy for single-mom Melanie and her son, Charlie, but her constant whining over Jared's reliance on the use of guns, and the way she's abused by Jared becomes tedious at times. There are a few lapses in logic in this thriller and the chase itself seems to go on over-long.

My major difficulty with ONE FALSE MOVE, is that the convoluted plot spun out to the reader in bits and pieces, is in the end, not adequately illuminated. It almost requires the reader to take notes and review them toward the end of the book. However, setting aside these difficulties, Alex Kava has written an intense, fast moving and intricate story, filled with unusual characters and several intriguing plot twists.

I think I liked this stand alone by Kava better than the Maggie O'Dell books. The story was intriguing and without a "main" character the author could create a compelling tale.

While starting out as a cheap mystery, this book grows on you as it goes along, building to a real page turner with cliffhangers in nearly every short chapter. While I like more complete novels with finely crafted sentences and long descriptive terms about the setting or history of an area, this novel (without those qualities) is a decent selection for "Nebraska Reads" as our novel to read and discuss during 2006. Alex Kava is an Omaha author and it was interesting reading a book set in the area in which I live. Definitely worth reading!

Jared Barnett, a convicted serial killer, released from prison through the talents of his lawyer, celebrates his freedom by stalking the prosecutor who put him away and killing the witness who recanted to get him out. He then hooks up with his sister Melanie and her teenage son, Charlie.

Melanie, whose guts tighten in fear at the thought of her brother, but whose bond with him is deep, secret and unbreakable, has brought up her son the best she can. She's taught him the little tricks of thieving and shoplifting that keep them financially afloat. But she's worried about Charlie. He treats it all like a game, a lark, not a job. And he idolizes Jared.

It's a bank job Jared has in mind for them and it goes about as badly as it can. With four people dead, the three are on the run, switching cars, disposing of witnesses and taking a hostage along the way. The hostage is Andrew Kane, a mystery writer who has always lived a rather passive existence.

Point of view switches among the various characters, but it's the byplay between Melanie, Jared, Charlie, and Kane that ratchets up the suspense - psychological and physical. Kava, author of the Maggie O'Dell FBI agent series ("The Soul Catcher," "At the Stroke of Madness"), delivers a fast, dark, nail biter, with an extra-special shocker saved for last.

One does not immediately think of the flatlands as a hotbed of crime. Yet there must be something about the region that flips a switch, that causes madness to boil over. Bonnie and Clyde, Charles Starkweather...it doesn't happen often, but when it does, it occurs on a large and terrible scale. Two such eruptions inspired and propelled ONE FALSE MOVE, Alex Kava's latest novel.

Kava has achieved critical and popular acclaim with her Maggie O'Dell stories, so a stand-alone novel such as ONE FALSE MOVE would seem to be a bit of a risk at this point. Any question about whether ONE FALSE MOVE might impede Kava's momentum, however, is resolved within the first few pages of this breathtaking work.

ONE FALSE MOVE begins with convicted murderer Jared Barnett being freed from prison as the result of a successful appeal by his attorney, Max Kramer. Barnett, flush with an adrenalin rush from his undeserved freedom, immediately begins picking his life up from where he left off, drawing his sister, Melanie Starks, and her son, Charlie, into the evil vortex of his life. Melanie is a roiling mass of contradictions. She appears on the surface to be a victim, buffeted this way and that by Barnett's influence --- yet she has a quietly amoral lifestyle that is, in its way, almost as unsettling as Barnett's, even if her wrongdoings don't achieve the magnitude of his. Or maybe they do, given that she has drawn Charlie into it, teaching him the ways of theft and graft without hesitation or regret.

Charlie, already propelled down a dark path by his mother, easily falls under Barnett's sway, to the degree that when Barnett plans a bank robbery with Charlie's assistance, Melanie is the last to know. She grudgingly goes along with the plan, and accordingly finds herself on the run with her brother and son when things go horribly wrong. There is no turning back for any of them, particularly Melanie, who finds herself horrified as the violence around her escalates with each passing hour, drawing herself and her son deeper and deeper into the quagmire into which her brother is leading them.

ONE FALSE MOVE is a chilling work from beginning to end. Kava's portrayal of Charlie Starks is unsettling; the similarity of his name to the notorious, real-life Starkweather and their identical interests contrast with Starks's unwitting innocence and childlike demeanor. Melanie's dull-witted acceptance of her situation is all too familiar; she yearns for a better life, but lacks the desire to make the effort to change. The mix of personalities and situations leaves the reader wondering from page to page what will happen next. Indeed, Kava saves one of the most unsettling moments of ONE FALSE MOVE for the final page.

While Kava will undoubtedly continue to achieve well-deserved success with her O'Dell novels, ONE FALSE MOVE is a fascinating tale, darkly drawn and brilliantly told.

--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub