“The premise is pretty good. A guy is driving his daughter home from school, and as they head into the neighborhood they come across a maniacal driver, a guy who cuts them off, nearly bashes right into their car, and then speeds around the block. As he’s coming back around at about 80 MPH, the father driving his daughter decides to jerk the wheel towards the other driver and then back the other way, an aggressive driving move to try and slow the guy down.
Well, it works, slowing him down from 80 to 0 when he jumps the curb, plows into a tree and dies.
Okay, that’s the first 15 pages or so, and from there it feels like it’s going nowhere.
The father feels guilt, which is understandable, but he’s constantly trying to keep his daughter from telling anyone what he did, but he’s not even sure she knows and he mostly worries about it instead of actually talking to her and finding anything out. Also, a detective keeps nosing around like there’s something going on, but what is unclear. What is he looking for when a car going 80 in a residential area crashes into a tree and the driver, without a seatbelt, is ejected from the car? How is that not case closed?
Furthermore, what is a 7 year-old going to say about her father’s driving that would incriminate him in any way? 7 year-olds don’t know how to drive. They don’t even know the proper ratio of peanut butter to jelly, so what could her opinion possibly be?
There was really nothing to feel for the main character, the father, before I quit reading. He made a dumb decision, and I couldn’t help but feel like, “Okay, either cop to this thing or not. But just decide and move on.”
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