Book Review: ONE FATAL MISTAKE

Title: One Fatal Mistake

Author: Tom Hunt
Publisher: Berkley Books
Pages: 310

My GoodReads Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Involved in a hit-and-run accident, honours student Joshua Mayo and an unnamed friend decide to run away and burn the tell-tale signs of their guilt, rather than come clean and face the consequences. They abandon the dead man in the Hawkeye Wildlife Management Area (HWMA). But Joshua is consumed by his guilt and reveals the truth to his mother, Karen, who is a single mother. 

Karen has worked hard to raise her son after her divorce, and the effort had nearly paid off. Joshua was about to start college. Until the crime threatens to unravel their lives.

Karen decides that there is too much at stake, that she cannot jeopardise her son’s future, and she should therefore help him cover his tracks. Joshua heads off to the woods where he has dropped a glove that could be traced to him, and jeopardise the future that is awaiting him. Karen follows him.

There they encounter Ross and Amber, who along with Ross’ brother, Shane, have just robbed a bank. Ross and Amber ditch Shane at the bank and escape in the car with the money. Then the car breaks down and they are forced to walk through the HWMA.

All four encounter one another and the situation gets worse. One fatal mistake snowballs into another, and it seems as if all the characters, Joshua, Karen, Teddy, Ross, Amber and Shane, make that one fatal mistake which dooms them. 

From then on, the action continues to blow up furiously, as all the characters make questionable choices in their quest to escape retribution. The best thing about this book was that the story began well, starting with a breathtaking pace and not letting go of it. Before long, all the characters are pulled into the main conflict.

It's hard to say anything more without giving away spoilers. This is a classic case of getting mixed up in somebody else's nightmarish drama.

All the characters are caught up in explosive solutions.  Unlikely alliances are formed as characters seek to escape from the sordid mess they find themselves in. 

Despite the violence in this book, and there was a lot of it, there was also a lot of love in this book, between Ross and Amber, between Joshua and Karen, and between Joshua and Teddy, his father. 

There are only a few characters but they are all important ones, pushing the story forward.

The conversations were a tad repetitive at times as when Teddy or Joshua tried to explain the rationale for their actions to Karen, on multiple occasions too.

The lengths to which Karen was willing to go to save her son were unbelievable. Of course, there were times when I wished she and Joshua would just come clean to the police but that was not to be.

Amber's flashbacks were awkward. The shift from present to past were not handled well, but the shift from the past to the present were smoother.

Despite Amber’s belief in Ross’ goodness, there wasn’t much evidence of it. And those who took wrong actions paid for it.

A hundred pages before the end, it didn’t seem like any happy ending was in sight.

This was a solid thriller, a little unbelievable, but I enjoyed it. But I appreciated the theme of the novel which was about the inevitability of retribution.