One False Move

by Alex Kava

Book Overview

Melanie Starks and her seventeen-year-old son have been running one con job or another for as long as she can remember. But Melanie is ready to give it up. When Jared Barnett, fresh out of prison... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0778321894
• ISBN13: 9780778321897
• Release Date: March 2005
• Publisher: Mira Books
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 4.2" x 6.6"

Customer Reviews

Good stand alone

The story starts off pretty strongly right away. And it just keeps going. The story kept me engrossed the whole way.

One False Move zips along at a fast clip

Jared Barnett gets his sister, Melanie, and her son, Charlie, involved in a bank robbery, kidnap a suspense writer, Andrew Kane, and go on a killing spree. There's a fair amount of intrigue and double crossing. Exciting pacing with its 69 chapters plus epilogue where no chapter is over 2 1/2 pages long jumping back and forth between the characters. A real page turner. There's a nice little twist at the end which I won't give away but it has to do with Melanie showing up a couple years later at one of Andrew Kane's book signings. Yes, he wrote about the experience. The question is, did he get all the facts right?

ONE FALSE MOVE

I am very pleased with this new book by Alex Kava that I have added to my collection. I love Nebraska authors and in my opinion she ranks right up there with Bess Streeter Aldrich....

Not Revolutionary, Just Good

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.

Kava is an author to watch ... she's great with suspense!

This book is one heck of a ride from start to finish, very exciting. It is quite different from the Maggie books with an entirely different point of view, and I enjoyed this new direction the author took. I look forward to the surprises Kava will continue to have for her many fans in the years to come. She grows as a writer from book to book, and it's always rewarding to watch a writer get better and better.

A Chilling Work from Beginning to End

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