Too Short

Driving Lessons by Ed McBain | LibraryThing:

A teacher giving a driving lesson to a bright young coed hits a woman and kills her.  That she's his wife complicates matters.  That he doesn't remember the event and appears to have been plastered out of his skill makes things worse.  Everyone, including the coed, swears the teacher is blameless and that he didn't imbibe.  Yet his system contains a huge dose of Seconal. But why was the wife seeking counsel from a priest outside her parish twice a week. What happened to the second cup that had McDonald's Coke in it?  Why did the driver, Andy, not want to have children, and why was his wife, the dead woman, trying so hard to have one?

Kate, the lead detective with problems at home of her own, keeps stumbling over odd little discrepancies.  I'm going to downgrade this book because it was too short.  It's barely a novella and  would be a nice outline for a fine McBain novel, but the ending was too predictable, the investigation should have been fleshed out, and the suspense better.

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