Driving Lessons

Rating:
Summary: Driving Lessons
Review: And it is a refreshing little trip away from everyone in the Big Bad City of which his familiar 87th Precinct is a part. Is this a new continuing crew, as he created with Matthew Hope? I hope so. The inhabitants of the Detective Division in the small city of River Close are just as interesting as their "Big City" colleagues. Driving Lessons is short and snappy. We don't know these people well yet, so there aren't as many concurrent cases and side stories going on. Maybe our next ride with them will be longer?

Rating:
Summary: Three And One Half Stars
Review: Ed McBain has been described by one jacket endorsement as being so good he should be arrested. "Driving Lessons" is a novella and the first of his work that I have read. It is very well done, and demonstrates the man's ability to entertain with a mystery in a very brief period of time. It also is a guaranteed catalyst to continuing with the massive body of work that he has produced.

The description on the jacket will lead many to divine the outcome of the story and the guilty party. I would wager that many of those that would hazard a guess would be disappointed when they find they are wrong. This was the intriguing bit the writer created, he offers 72 brief pages, a description that seemingly tells the entire story, but in fact does not. It is akin to a novella of misdirection, he knows that most will look to what they believe to be the obvious, only to believe that which he wanted them to place their faith in.

Mr. McBain also does a great job of bringing the personalities of the main players into very sharp relief not only for a novella length book, but also for a novel that most Authors would require hundreds of pages to create legitimate characters that you feel familiar with. This is the reading equivalent of speed chess, when not given the normal length of time brilliant moves often arise.

Rating:
Summary: Three And One Half Stars
Review: Ed McBain has been described by one jacket endorsement as being so good he should be arrested. "Driving Lessons" is a novella and the first of his work that I have read. It is very well done, and demonstrates the man's ability to entertain with a mystery in a very brief period of time. It also is a guaranteed catalyst to continuing with the massive body of work that he has produced.

The description on the jacket will lead many to divine the outcome of the story and the guilty party. I would wager that many of those that would hazard a guess would be disappointed when they find they are wrong. This was the intriguing bit the writer created, he offers 72 brief pages, a description that seemingly tells the entire story, but in fact does not. It is akin to a novella of misdirection, he knows that most will look to what they believe to be the obvious, only to believe that which he wanted them to place their faith in.

Mr. McBain also does a great job of bringing the personalities of the main players into very sharp relief not only for a novella length book, but also for a novel that most Authors would require hundreds of pages to create legitimate characters that you feel familiar with. This is the reading equivalent of speed chess, when not given the normal length of time brilliant moves often arise.

Rating:
Summary: An Outstanding Novella About Learning from Each Other
Review: First, a word of caution. This is a novella. A novella is much different from a short story and a novel. If you don't know if you like novellas or not, give this one a try. Novellas are rewarding because they require the author to trim down the story to its essentials, and move much faster than novels. They are much more complex and developed than short stories, making them more rewarding for the reader. I like to think of novellas as getting the good parts of the novel without the unnecessary and annoying aspects.

If you know you don't like novellas, skip this one. No novella is going to please someone who only likes novels. There is a lot to be said for the long, relaxing process of curling up in a chair to spend several hours browsing through a fictional world. Novellas don't take that long, and cannot substitute for that psychologically distancing experience.

Second, this is not an 87th Precinct story. So you will be disappointed if you buy and read it looking for one. In fact, it takes a much different form from those novels.

On the other hand, for those who love novellas, this is a particularly rewarding one. The book's theme is contained in the word "lessons." We all learn in different ways, and what we do with that new learning can be important to us and to others. The book also contains a mystery, as you would expect from Mr. McBain (Evan Hunter). Both the theme and the mystery are well developed, and nicely intertwine as an added reward for those, like me, who admire the craft of writing novellas.

The opening scene is gripping. Sixteen-year-old Rebecca Patton runs down a pedestrian while taking her driving lesson. The woman she hits is tossed into a pile of burning leaves and lies seriously injured. The police arrive before the ambulance leaves. Rebecca is confused and upset. Worst of all, her driving instructor cannot even say his own name. How could this happen? Before long, she's in the police station being interrogated. Every parent's heart will be in their mouth while they read this opening.

The story develops nicely from there, with many mirror images that reflect in many different directions. I felt like the story allowed me to look into a crystal that contained many repeating images of itself in an ever expanding universe. You will learn a lot about the expanding potential for good and evil from this story, as well.

The plot is fully developed with many twists and turns. In fact, the complexity is consistent that found in any full-length novel in the mystery genre. This is an impressive accomplishment because it is hard to write a detailed plot in a novella without seeming to be rushed or confusing the reader.

Also, consider giving this book as a gift to those you know who admire the novella form. Not sure whether your friends and relatives like novellas? Ask them. You may be surprised by what you learn. Also, you may get a chance to introduce the format to them. That can lead to a lifetime of additional reading enjoyment.

After you finish reading this book, I suggest you think about where else in life less can be better. And then seek out more concentrated doses of essence for your own benefit. That can save you time now wasted on the superfluous. You can then spend the time you save on other things you love to do that are good for you!

Keep learning and turn it to the best!

Rating:
Summary: Missed the Mark
Review: I believe that it takes great skill to write a novella or a short story, and think that Ed McBain should stick to his conventional format. I can only compare this to Steve Martin's novella, "Shopgirl", which contained fully developed characters and a complete storyline within about the same number of pages.

Anyone expecting a full-scale Ed McBain story will be disappointed in this little novella. I was initially interested in the story but found it to be deficient in character development. The reader never really knew much about the characters....I felt that the man who found the purse , a very minor character, was described more fully than any of the main characters.

Not every author can write this kind of book, but I do know that it is possible to have fully fleshed-out characters in even a short story---it just did not happen here. That makes it very difficult to really care about what happens to anyone in "Driving Lessons".

Rating:
Summary: Missed the Mark
Review: I believe that it takes great skill to write a novella or a short story, and think that Ed McBain should stick to his conventional format. I can only compare this to Steve Martin's novella, "Shopgirl", which contained fully developed characters and a complete storyline within about the same number of pages.

Anyone expecting a full-scale Ed McBain story will be disappointed in this little novella. I was initially interested in the story but found it to be deficient in character development. The reader never really knew much about the characters....I felt that the man who found the purse , a very minor character, was described more fully than any of the main characters.

Not every author can write this kind of book, but I do know that it is possible to have fully fleshed-out characters in even a short story---it just did not happen here. That makes it very difficult to really care about what happens to anyone in "Driving Lessons".

Rating:
Summary: Pleasantly surprised
Review: I have never read anything by Ed McBain before so I read this book with no expectations, except the fact the length of the book meant I would finish it in an afternoon.

By page 52 I was telling myself that I was convinced I knew what happened, how the instructor was impaired, etc. But, I was wrong in the end.

I don't want to give anything about this book away, except for the fact that you shouldn't expect it to be like other Ed McBain books, as it isn't. But, in my opinion, you will definently enjoy reading it.

Rating:
Summary: Another Contractual Obligation Out of the Way!
Review: I'm not sure where the idea for this novella came from, but I suspect that McBain noted he still had another book on his contract with Carroll & Graf, and needed to kick something out that would free him to pursue other, more profitable handshakes. McBain writes so very much better than this book shows; please don't let this be your first Ed McBain read. Here's the premise: a female high school sophomore, out on a driving lesson with her driving instructor (who is primarily her art teacher) runs over and fatally injures a young woman leaving a church. Several nifty Mystery Writer's Almanac elements are thrown in - the driving instructor gets out of the car, stumbling and acting drunk or high (in spite of his student's protests that he hadn't been drinking, and she hadn't seen him take any drugs); the church the woman was coming out of was NOT the one she frequented on Sundays; and, the show-stopper, the woman who was killed by the impact of the car turns out to be the instructor's wife. Sounds like an excellent start to what should have been a great read.

However, the red herrings that are obligatory to even the best mystery writer were so blatantly obvious, you'll be able to sniff out the ending by page 20 (which, I will admit, is almost a third of the way through this 72-pager...yeah, 72 pages). McBain didn't seem to know where to draw the line at character exploration - he spends more time defining the character, inside and out, who finds the dead woman's purse (and leads to her identity) than two of the main characters in the police station. The further I read the book, the more frustrated I became.

The narrative is sparse, as a novella's narrative should be. At times, however, it appears as though McBain isn't even aware that he's writing a novella; there are passages that seem to be well-fleshed out for what would have been the "final product," vice what now appears to merely be an outline, not a complete story.

External to the story itself, I was somewhat puzzled by the choice of English (vice American) spellings and grammar usage ("spoilt" and "an habitual..." are the ones that immediately pop to mind). This, married with the fact that the printed page surrounds dialogue with the apostrophe, rather than quotation marks (a tool used almost exclusively in British printing since the mid 1860s) made me look twice to see where the book was published. I know: Big deal, Misha; you didn't like the publishing run, either. Well, it IS a big deal when all you have to work with are 72 shabby pages of what you know could have and should have been a much better book.

Rating:
Summary: A Tale by the Master
Review: Rebecca Patton, 16, runs down a pedestrian during a driving lesson. The victim is a woman, who is in critical condition, and later dies. The driving instructor, Andrew Newell, is stoned; he should have applied his brake, but because of his condition, he is arrested for negligent homicide. The victim is discovered to be Newell's wife, Mary Beth. This is a short novel that is certainly not up to par with the 87th Precinct novels, but it was never intended to be. Ed McBain is a master is suspense, and that suspense is evident in "Driving Lessons".

Rating:
Summary: Short and Sweet
Review: Sixteen year old Rebecca Patton strikes and kills a female pedestrian, during her driving lesson. When the police arrive, they find her instructor, Andrew Newell, stumbling and totally disoriented. At first the police believe he's drunk. But he passes the breathalyzer test. Then they figure he must have taken drugs, but Rebecca insists that he didn't take or drink anything, during her lesson. The police become even more suspicious, when the identity of the dead woman is discovered. It's Mary Beth Newell, Andrew's wife. Ed McBain is always a master of mystery and suspense and never disappoints. This well written, short novella is very tense, with smart, crisp dialogue, interesting characters, that subtle feeling that everything isn't as it seems and an unexpected twist at the end. Driving Lessons is a fast read and pure enjoyment. What else could you ask for?