Inconsistancies / poor research in novels Grrrrr

Inconsistancies / poor research in novels Grrrrr

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Upinflames

Original Poster:

1,757 posts

185 months

Wednesday 20th March
quotequote all
This winds me up.

I like a good thriller / whodunnit and I thought I'd have a look at Peter James' books so picked a few up while trailing SWMBO around the charity shops.

I'm not going to be able to read them they're so bad so I'm giving them back next time we go to town.

I read one yesterday.

it's set in a rambling old spooky chateau somewhere in France.

Killers after young family in dark etc.

First of all the killer manages to make the battery of the family's car go flat. Not disconnected, flat, it clicks when he tries the ignition. The car is locked, new we are told with 3000 on the clock. When he goes outside again it has vanished.

Now our hero gets himself a kitchen knife and in the pitch dark cuts through an inch thick armoured cable exposing the bare wires with which he electrifies the metal banister thus killing one of the killers. he takes his shotgun and goes downstairs to where the other killer is wounded after he toppled a stuffed deer on her earlier. Except he now has the gun which he covers her with as he retrieves the shotgun.

Is it me? SWMBO says i should chill and enjoy the plot but Dean Koontz doesn't make mistakes like that even with demons from another dimension!





Edited by Upinflames on Wednesday 20th March 15:34


Edited by Upinflames on Wednesday 20th March 15:34

droopsnoot

12,658 posts

249 months

Wednesday 20th March
quotequote all
No, I get annoyed about stuff like that too, and my main bug-bear is American authors who don't do the basic research when one of their characters comes to the UK. £100 notes, old crumbling cottages that have waste disposal in the sink, that sort of stuff. Annoyingly it's often big-name authors who can easily afford to pay someone to check their facts. Like Tom Clancy in Rainbow Six, who has his group land at RAF Northolt and travel south, yet still arrive at Hereford.

I haven't seen one yet that's stopped me finishing the book, though.

Edited by droopsnoot on Wednesday 20th March 18:27

Mr Tidy

24,313 posts

134 months

Monday 1st April
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It annoys me too, so at least there are 3 of us!

DodgyGeezer

42,391 posts

197 months

Monday 1st April
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and another. 2 PH examples spring to mind...

- mentions the rear door of an MX5 getting hit
- mentions the sound of crunching metal when a Corvette is hit

nothing earth-shattering but still enough to have me grinding my teeth and (nearly) shouting at the book

w1bbles

1,055 posts

143 months

Tuesday 2nd April
quotequote all
droopsnoot said:
No, I get annoyed about stuff like that too, and my main bug-bear is American authors who don't do the basic research when one of their characters comes to the UK. £100 notes, old crumbling cottages that have waste disposal in the sink, that sort of stuff. Annoyingly it's often big-name authors who can easily afford to pay someone to check their facts. Like Tom Clancy in Rainbow Six, who has his group land at RAF Northolt and travel south, yet still arrive at Hereford.

I haven't seen one yet that's stopped me finishing the book, though.

Edited by droopsnoot on Wednesday 20th March 18:27
We have £100 notes in Scotland. FREEDOM! biggrin

Upinflames

Original Poster:

1,757 posts

185 months

Tuesday 2nd April
quotequote all
I'm trying Peter James again and he's got me grinding my teeth already with a 16 wheel artic wagon and the driver pushing the lever forward into 1st gear.


ozzuk

1,227 posts

134 months

Tuesday 2nd April
quotequote all
w1bbles said:
We have £100 notes in Scotland. FREEDOM! biggrin
Yeah but no-ones ever seen one!

toasty

7,777 posts

227 months

Tuesday 2nd April
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Tom Parker-Bowles wrote something about an Asian insect market being an etymologist’s delight.

Not sure what the origins of words has anything to do munching on beetles.

Unless he meant entomologist…