Review: Driven

Driven by James Sallis

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



Driven doesn't quite live up to the high bar that Sallis' other works have set. The biggest problem here seems to be excess; a too-large cast of characters, too many references to events unseen, too many hints at future stories, too much everything crammed into a too small package.

First of all, there are just too many characters here for such a short book. With so many of them coming and going, it quickly became difficult to remember who they were or why they were there. Some of the characters are mentioned without actually appearing in the book, which adds to the confusion. I'm still not really sure who some of them were or what their relationship to Driver was. A few extra pages to flesh some of them out might not have been amiss.

Still, even if this felt a little mediocre by Sallis standards, it's still a damn sight better than a lot of other writers produce at their best; a three star rating probably speaks more to the overall quality of Sallis' body of work than it does to the flaws of this particular book.








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