Laurelde.com - Education and Guide for Drivers

Tony Award-winning Broadway actress Barbara Rosenblat gives an impressive performance, switching between character voices and straight narration convincingly, while moving the action forward without striving. "Driving Lessons" is a short and not-so-sweet treat by one of the master craftsmen working the crime story beat. (Running time: two hours, one cassette) --George Laney

Book Description
America's greatest writer of police novels tells a shocking story of innocence and guilt, of lives shattered. As sixteen-year-old Rebecca Patton takes an apparently ordinary driving lesson, tragedy strikes when she runs down and kills a woman who has just stepped off a curb. When detective Katie Logan appears on the scene, she discovers that the driving instructor, Andrew Newell, is behaving incoherently and appears to be drunk. The apparent negligent homicide certainly warrants an arrest. But when the victim's handbag is retrieved, and the woman is identified as Newell's wife, Logan fears that something far more sinister may have occurred. Praise for Ed McBain: "He is, by far, the best at what he does. Case closed." - People; "A master." - Time; "The author delivers the goods: wired action scenes, dialogue that breathes, characters with heart and characters who eat those hearts, and glints of unforgiving humor.... McBain owns his turf." - New York Times Book Review; "The best crime writer in the business." - Houston Post.

Flunking your 'Driving Lesson'   July 31, 2002

It would be grossly unfair to judge his work on the basis of this book. And, unless you are addicted to the "reality" of tv-plots, it would be a waste of time to read this book.


Missed the Mark   July 27, 2001
  2 out of 4 found this review helpful

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".


Three And One Half Stars   June 25, 2001
  11 out of 12 found this review helpful

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.


Driving Lessons   April 27, 2001
  2 out of 2 found this review helpful

Driving Lessons was a great book! I can't believe that Ed Mc'Bain has pulled off another thrilling book. Although it could have been much longer, and provided more detail. I guess people will just have to read the rest of the books (past and present) in the series.


Ed McBain has left the City   April 23, 2001
  3 out of 3 found this review helpful

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?