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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
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