Review of The Night Driver

[Jelani Trotter]

[Following is an official OnlineBookClub.org review of "The Night Driver" by Sean McManus.]

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3 out of 5 stars

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I’ve always wondered about the thought process of serial killers. Here in The Night Driver by Sean McManus, we get to see how one thinks.

Michael “Mickey” Roth was born to a drug addict who would do anything and sleep with anybody just to get money for her drugs, without caring for her son. Her neglect caused her son lots of misery—from looking haggard to being burnt with the brunt of cigarettes, to being stepped on, to having a broken bone. Things got worse after he broke a bone and had to visit the hospital. He was taken away from his mom and placed in foster care.

The foster parents were not any better. They derived joy from beating and treating the foster kids badly. All this only made him resent his mother more. Mickey thought he had a shot at a good life when he started working at a car dealership at 16, and the owner, Mr. Adams, took a liking to him and treated him like a son. All this ended when he was 20, when Mr. Adams died. Mickey tried to take another shot at being a soldier, but this failed too and didn’t quench the darkness raging in him. Why does Mickey kill? Who are his victims? Was he ever apprehended? What was the kill that got the retired homicide detective on his tail?

I like how this book highlights how damaged the children of drug addicts and prostitutes can be. This is not something new, and there has been lots of research concerning it. Children of drug addicts who always had to see their parents in these states end up maturing too early, without being children first, and many would be placed in foster homes like Mickey, without being adequately cared for. This book also included the trauma most foster children had to face at different foster homes, excluding the trauma of not having a stable home and having to move many times. Some would suffer sexual abuse and bullying from older kids at times. I hope the authorities in charge of this will look into it.

There are many things I don’t like about this book. There were so many errors that almost every sentence had one. Sometimes, I had to read a sentence twice to understand what it said, especially with the lack of proper punctuation. One notable aspect of the writing style is the overreliance on short sentences. This can make the narrative feel a bit flat and lacking in depth. To add more complexity and nuance, the author could have varied sentence structure and length. I feel the book still has a lot of work to do and corrections. The beginning of the story is rushed, making Michael’s backstory lack depth. Also, it would have been quite helpful if there was a map containing the route Mickey took during his travel trips, as he was a truck driver. Many of us are not very familiar with various routes.

This is recommended to people who love reading thriller books. Most of the crime scenes were written explicitly. If you are likely to be triggered, you might want to avoid this. Also, there is a lot of use of major profanities. It has some sexual content as well, necrophilia to be precise. I give this 3 out of 5 stars. The storyline was good, but it was not properly developed.

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The Night Driver
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[Mark Lazarus]

Sounds like a dark and unsettling read with an interesting dive into a serial killer’s mind. The raw themes and psychological depth could be gripping, but the writing issues and rushed backstory might make it a frustrating experience.

[kimarijohn]

I have never understood why these foster homes will accept a kid only to continue with the abuse on them. Sadistic indeed.

[Joseph Phoebe]

In The Night Driver, Sean McManus crafts Mickey Roth’s descent into killing as a chilling reflection of his unrelenting trauma—abandoned by his drug-addicted mother, brutalized in foster care, and robbed of hope after losing Mr. Adams—showing how a lifetime of betrayal can twist a fractured psyche into a relentless need for control through murder.