Dani Pettrey's One Wrong Move Book Review

I like heist films, the ones with the sly cat burglar, the safecracker, and the mastermind with the brilliant plan.

And adding a group of skilled experts to form an unstoppable team makes a movie all that better. There’s stealth, there’s cohesion, there’s each person’s expertise coming into play in delivering a well-executed plan no one sees coming.

Much like Mission: Impossible. And by that, I mean the 1966-1973 TV show, an outright favorite of my sister. Personally, I go for the team that leans toward, shall we say, less than the right side of the law, with my favorite being The Italian Job (2003) – (Disclaimer: I have an app that filters out the bad stuff.)

How To Steal A Million (1966) is another good one, mixing cunning with hilarity, while To Catch a Thief (1954) is the essence of cat burglary on the French Riviera. Aaaannd that’s when my family begins to worry…

In my defense, there happens to be at least one or more admirable characters to root for in the films, not driven into these circumstances by criminal motives.

And now that I've spilled my secret fascination, you can understand why the novel I'm trying to get published is about a freelance forensic artist hurtling herself into the brutal underworld as a safecracker to bring down the criminal organization behind her parents' murders.

Yeah, safecrackers, cat burglars, revenge, the kit and caboodle.

Dani Pettrey is a new author to me, so when I decided to give her books a try, One Wrong Move instantly jumped out at me. I mean, it’s about a former burglar-now security system expert called in to solve a string of art gallery heists. Sounds like something right up my alley, right?

How To Steal A Million (1966)

Set on the backdrop of New Mexico, the scenario is what I would consider unique, as I haven’t had much visual experience with that Southwestern state. With a small town setting, a sprawling ranch, and arid, cactus-speckled landscapes to mountainous aspen forests, it was overall a pleasant location to set a book in.

First-time-meeting descriptions tell a lot about a book, as it turns out. And I don’t know why you can’t have an unbiased He was dark-haired, muscular, with a funny mustache, blah blah blah, without it going into Wow, look at those muscles and physique! What a hunk! From the unabashed ogling female protagonist.

And unfortunately, those little mental inserts were rampant in the book, the guys repeatedly mooning about how adorable the girls were, and pulling from the moment with what felt like adolescent attraction when they should be focusing on the bigger issue at hand.

“Guys” as in Christian and his brother, Deckard. The introduction of him and their sister, along with Greyson, a friend/co-worker in their family-owned private investigation firm, was a welcoming surprise. A story is always better when it's rounded out with more than just the singular characters of the hero and heroine. They proved to have each others' backs with a strong, family focus.

The romance between Andi, the insurance investigator, and Christian, which happened so fast to be unrealistic, was at least not too mushy in the sense that they were ending every sentence with a kiss and a cuddle. (Been there, read that. Don't get me started.) The two had enough sense to do their job and not get sidetracked with their accelerating, ardent relationship.

Buuuttt, I might as well get it out in the open: the romance was corny! Straight off the cob! They sounded like teenagers with their first crush, not mature adults as you'd expect in their positions. The worst incident being this borderline suggestive exchange between the two about their plans for the evening and the next moment finding they’re playing back-to-back games of Uno on the hotel bedroom floor.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want anything immoral - or spicy as the going term is now. But playing the Uno card game ALL NIGHT LONG???

I play Uno.

Uno is only entertaining for so long.

Sounds like a hard-to-believe excuse by a wayward teen, to which the parents respond with a tight-lipped uh-huh.

Faith played a slightly more intrinsic role than I expected, with the characters earnestly desiring to seek God’s will for their lives, spurring a discussion between Andi and her friend, Harper, on Scriptural truth in one scene. I appreciate that this point was emphasized, as it serves as a good influence for the readers.

But by the same token, there emerged another trope (one rampantly used in Christian fiction) that could work just the opposite, priming women to make unwise decisions.

There’s danger, right? The killers are out to get them and those around them. So, in an effort to protect Andi, Christian has her stay at his house, both of them obviously in love in an unchaperoned and potentially tempting environment. It's unhealthy to think you can be thrown together with this strong attraction and yet act like it’s no big deal.

We are good people – Christians – and can’t possibly be tempted to do anything wrong… I wonder if that's what David thought; what Bathsheba thought.

And it happened with not just Andi and Christian, but his brother staying at Harper, Andi's friend's apartment, and his sister and their co-worker staying at her place, all paired off with their significant other as if it was the most natural thing.

Please stop perpetuating this misconception and setting up women and girls for a fall when their guy isn’t a gentleman like they were led to believe. Hey, flesh is weak, so we shouldn’t play with fire.

Now, to roll back to the subject that led me to choose this particular book. There was a lack of detail about the security systems Christian O’Grady specialized in, the execution of the antagonists’ heists, and even his backstory so you get a clearer idea of all that he’s come from and how he’s acquired his skills that qualify him to defeat the enemy. That part was rather vague, with their investigation mostly consisting of questioning the suspects of the case.

I was disappointed because personally, I’ve gone to great lengths researching safes and security systems to make my own novel as accurate as possible, adding hopefully, not too much detail to be tedious, but enough to show my protagonist, Sidney, knows what she’s doing.

And then I have to ask, how did the author get away with neglecting to give the hero and heroine a character arc? Andi and Christian were too perfect and polite, prompting me to figure out the reason why they weren’t relatable. The one reason I settled on was that they didn’t grow, overcome some personal struggle, or become better in any way, leaving for flat characters that remained the same from start to end. Isn’t that contrary to all writing advice?

There was quite a bit of repetitive writing, e.g, constantly exhaling as a reaction, and saying thank you in tiresome politeness, among others, with even two different side characters saying the exact same statement two pages apart and the protagonist repeating the answer with only a word or two off. Not to be harsh, but it felt like the book was never edited from the first, hastily written draft.

I hope all of this doesn’t sound like a load of negativity. And I like to point out that the romance aspect didn’t overtake the suspense, as I was afraid of. Christian and Andi worked well with his siblings and Greyson to get to the bottom of the mystery, displaying a tight-knit family and team. I actually liked Christian’s older brother, Deckard, the hard-nosed private investigator, and Harper, Andi’s forthright and peppery friend, more than the former two. Their distinctive personalities added an interesting quality to the story.

My point with this is to encourage authors to strive for something deeper while not sacrificing hardcore entertainment. Yes, there are readers, like me, who want something a little deeper in relationships, faith, and plot structure. And shouldn’t we as Believers be not just parroting the secular world, but forging our own paths to impact the culture?

Have you read One Wrong Move? What are your thoughts on it? Should I have started with another of Dani Pettrey’s novels instead of jumping to this one? I’d love to hear your recommendations!

~Alissa