Type of bind: Hardcover
Format: Bargain Price
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 320
Printing Date: August 01, 2004
Sale Popularity Level: 1017346
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Product Description:
Melanie Starks has never lived her life by the rules. She and her seventeen-year-old-son, Charlie, have been running one con job or another for as long as she can remember, justifying the petty crimes as the necessary survival moves of a single mother. But Melanie is getting sick of that life, and she's more than a little worried that Charlie is enjoying the high of being a thief just a bit to much.
Then Jared Barnett reappears in her life.
Jared has just gotten out of prison after serving five years of a life sentence for murder. Released on a technicality that by no means proved his innocence, Jared shows up on Melanie's doorstep. There's something different about Jared, a dangerous edge that comes from feeling more invincible than ever. He ahs the perfect plan for a big score and he needs Melanie and Charlie's help. Deciding this will be the last job she ever pulls, Melanie agrees to Jared's plan to rob a local Nebraska bank.
But everything goes terribly wrong.
As Melanie waits in a car outside, Jared and Charlie enter the bank. Seconds later, Melanie hears gunfire and both men run out, empty-handed and yelling at her to drive. Refusing to tell her what happened in those few desperate moments, the men have formed a silent bond, one that terrifies Melanie to the core. Because she's been shut out.
After outrunning a police chase, Melanie, Jared and Charlie take refuge in a remote cabin in the Platte River State Park. They take as hostage its occupant, Andrew Kane, a writer who's shut himself away to finish his latest novel.
When Melanie learns that six people were shot dead in the back, she is left to wonder who did what. Who lost control, Jared or Charlie? And why did things turn so bad so quickly? One thing is clear: A line has been crossed. Suddenly there's no turning back, and there is nothing left to lose.
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Rated by buyers 
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This was a good, page-turner of a novel. The way that the characters come together was sort of like 'Isn't this a small world?'
There were a few small errors in some of the smaller details that kind of stuck out that made me scratch my head. (Ex: Why would they keep the channel tuned to CBS, while waiting for Leno to come on, if he has always been on NBC?
Still, a good, fast, fun read.
Rated by buyers 
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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.
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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....
Rated by buyers -
Alex Kava's very 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.
Rated by buyers 
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Kava has written a novel with a pretty evil main villain, Jared who was let off on a technicality from death row. He is accompanied by some limited intelligence followers being his sister Melanie and nephew Charlie who after a bungled bank robbery flee across the middle states of America. Successful author with a serious injury to his collar bone, Andrew Kane is taken hostage by the bumbling trio and Melanie soon realises nothing will stop the bloodthirsty rampage of her brother. Even worse he son seems to be following in his footsteps.
Nothing spectacular happens in One False Move, what inside has been done quite regularly before and the ending is extremely predictable but if you get this book for a really cheap price in a second hand bookstore or for free from the library it will pass the time.
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