OK - Fiction is fiction, it's made up but when a story is set in the 1940's during the war, and facts are easy to verify it's just really annoying when an author says something that just sounds so wrong.
Here they are, a lot of London policemen, in wartime London discussing what's going on at Bletchley Park - this was so secret that hardly anyone knew what happened there until it was revealed much later. Yet in the story they know it all - the machines, the clever code breakers and even the name Enigma and what it was going to be used for.
And then one of the policemen pops home to have a shower. Bath -yes - but showers were rare in private homes until later - even if he was a top cop with royal connections!
Does it matter - I suppose not really, just makes me cross.
This was the book, it's the 8th in a series set in wartime London and featuring DCI Coburg, Sergeant Lampson and Coburg's wife- a well known pianist and singer. As well as murder in the cathedral there is also a murder at the Ealing Film studios. This author is very prolific and seems to write two or three books each year. I did finish it and the story and details about the people working in the Cathedral during the war are good.
Research is so easy these days. Those authors just sound lazy.
ReplyDeleteI suppose to some people it doesn't matter but I find myself shouting "No!"
DeleteThey sound like a couple of books that I will not be looking to read. 🫤 I hate it when authors get their facts spectacularly wrong. I also despair of spelling mistakes that haven't been picked up by the authors themselves reading back, the computers they use or the proof readers at the final stage.
ReplyDeleteThe Jim Eldridge books are OK - I've read all his wartime crime from the first one, but just wish that some things didn't seem so wrong
DeleteI’m with you on this one. Have given up on several books because of inaccuracies like that. My last one had an ‘ordinary everyday woman’ going home to ‘batch cook and fill her deep freezer’…..in 1930. I don’t think many ‘ordinary people’ had refrigerators in those days let alone deep freezers
ReplyDeleteAlso (like your second example) overseas authors using terms not used in the country of setting - although at a ‘meet the author’ afternoon one Australian author let slip publishers ‘demand’ changes…..your novel won’t sell if you don’t use ‘purse/handbag’ - woollen jumper/sweater’ examples
Batch cooking and deep freezing in the 30's definitely a "No" I should think. So annoying
DeleteMy pet peeve was a book set in England during Queen Victoria's reign. It written by an American lady and mentioned blueberry muffins being eaten. I'm pretty sure blueberry muffins hadn't made it to England by then.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely right. The first English blueberries were grown in Dorset in the early 1950s. And a Victorian "muffin" would not have been a large cupcake either!
DeleteThanks Ang.
DeleteSomeone started a Blueberry farm in the 1990's near the smallholding and it was seen as a really new idea!
DeleteI get really cross if the details are untrue, as you say it's relatively easy to check facts.
ReplyDeleteIt's the little things - I guess I've read too many wartime diaries and books!
DeleteLazy journalism and writing are sadly both prevalent. Books written about Scotland are often shockingly inaccurate, and it makes me want to set my long fanged haggis on them to give them a fright! 😂. Catriona
ReplyDeletePeople used to spend hours and weeks researching for books, now it can be done so easily.
DeleteI'll watch out for vicious haggis if I ever come to Scotland again!
Ah, "historical cozies" we can all do without! I'm reading a Lisa Jewell right now, "None of this is True". Struggling a little with it.
ReplyDeleteLuckily I have so many other books to read so giving one up doesn't leave a gap.
DeleteHadn't read Lisa Jewell so looked her up - she's prolific and popular but I'll give her a miss
Ugh. Impossible to read with those kind of errors. We'll have Queen Victoria checking something on the Internet and sending emails next. Thanks for the warnings!
ReplyDeleteIt seems strange that some authors manage authenticity while others don't notice glaring errors
DeleteThings like that really grate on my nerves. I am actually finding it hard to find much that I enjoy reading in the way of fiction at the moment, so many novels are churned out every week now, I am reading more non-fiction. Regards Sue H
ReplyDeleteThank goodness there is always another author who hasn't made mistakes like these
DeleteI would have given up, too. It's not difficult to check facts.
ReplyDeleteI can forgive some errors but too many is just annoying
DeleteI prefer novels written in the 1940s, especially by women, because they give a glimpse of the frustrations, little snippets the historians wouldn’t mention. The biggest difference was that the writer did not know who would win. I have just reread Growing Up, written in 1942 by Angela Thirkell.
ReplyDeleteI've gradually been collecting and reading all of Angela Thirkells books - I enjoy her gentle humour. There are a few that I haven't got as they are too expensive and haven't been reprinted but I'm hopeful they will be.
DeleteThere is an "Angela Thirkell Society" made up of fans of her books. They tend to be quiet and gentle people.
DeleteCeci
I wonder how many of these books with obvious errors are AI written.
ReplyDeleteThat's a good point - maybe that's what's happening
DeleteWhat a lazy writer to use Americanisms in a book about London in the twenties!
ReplyDeleteDid you read the Shardlake stories by C J Sansom and have you seen the adaptation on TV? I have to admit I need to rewatch because I fell asleep before the end of the first episode, no reflection on the programme, just my tendency to nod off.
Penny
Loved all the Shardlake books, I kept them all for a while but they were rather large. He died in 2024 and left one book un finished.
DeleteI've only seen part 1 out of 4 on TV Apparently they aren't making more
It's often the job of the proof reader/editor to check facts and raise queries with the author. I'm amazed so many faults have made it to publication. There are so many books available these days that perhaps there's a shortage of subs/proof readers!
ReplyDeleteAuthors need to check with someone from the country they are writing about or just set their books in their own country!
DeleteI have a friend who has had over 60 books published in the UK and many other countries. She always goes to the country she is writing about and thoroughly researches the subjects. It's a recipe for success!
DeleteFact checking seems to be overlooked by publishers.
ReplyDeleteSue you would make an outstanding editor at a publishing house.
I doubt that - I would get too cross and not be tactful!
DeleteSometimes I am bothered by the typos or errors I find in a story I am reading. I want to correct it in the copy but since I read library books, I wouldn't want to write in it. I think the writers are relying on the Internet instead of good, old fashioned research and editing.
ReplyDeleteWe often used to find all sorts of corrections that readers had made in library books - and crossings out and exclamation marks!
DeleteLike in all things, I suppose there are lazy authors too?! What a shame. I think I'd be tempted to find an email address for both & send them a little message! ~Andrea xoxo
ReplyDeleteGood idea
DeleteI have a couple by Eldridge I haven't read yet but that's worrying, especially with WWII. I know I would have picked up on the Bletchley right away. When I find that, if the mystery is good, I'll keep going but you are so right about being annoyed!
ReplyDeleteHe has a tendency to try to teach about the war in his writing - and I think he's trying too hard to teach about Bletchley Park.
DeleteAnachronisms and whatever the word is for inappropriate Americanisms in British settings as well as inappropriate Briticisms in American settings drive me mad out of all proportion. It seems so obvious if you are writing a book set in another country to have some intelligent layman from that country review it before publication. Just for the record, Americans rarely use the phrase "I reckon"; we say "I guess". And a saltbox house in New England is not any small, cute, old house; it's a particular construction with a long sloping roof in the back. Some of them are quite large.
ReplyDelete"Reckon" is actually used quite often in the American South. I had a babysitter when I was growing up Florida who used to say "I reckon" all the time. :)
DeleteYes, "I reckon", "we reckon" - I'm still hearing it here in Virginia.
DeleteCeci
I use both " I reckon" and " I guess" - interchangeable!
DeleteRe: Steve & Julie's comments on "reckon": that brings up another issue. The US is very large and there are many, many, many regional differences. A person from Massachusetts does not speak the same way a person from Florida or Texas or California speaks.
DeleteThis is why writers need editors!
ReplyDeletei'm always complaining about inaccurate details in books, films and tv programmes, you're not alone, from julie
ReplyDeleteI'm glad I'm not the only one to get cross!
DeleteI have an author friend who has to fight for Australianisms to stay in her books if they are to be published in the US, but I think that your examples are a step too far. I only realised late in life that a lot of these very prolific authors do outsource to other writers, although with the advent of AI they may no longer need to. It is so lazy and sloppy.
ReplyDeleteIt's a complicated business!
DeleteThese kinds of errors are so annoying - my pet peeve is historical novels where the characters say "OK" and "throw a party". No, have some respect for your subject matter and your readers!
ReplyDeleteCeci
Very true
DeleteI requested the Susie Dent book you mentioned. Right now I am reading "Homecoming" by Kate Morton and so far it is quite enthralling.
ReplyDeleteHope you enjoy the Susie Dent book, I haven't tried Homecoming yet
DeleteResearch? Do some authors even do any. A friend was writing a book about a plane crash in Northern Ontario near Hudson's Bay. He had the survivor swimming across to an island in the middle of the bay. I tried to tell him that would be impossible (grew up in Ontario) but he did not believe me until the book was almost finished.... Then I got a "Why didn't you tell me?"
ReplyDeleteGod bless.
Oh dear, seems a shame that authors don't try to find out what they are writing about
DeleteOh dear. I hate poorly researched novels. I remember one that talked about an outhouse. A privy. Except she mentioned washing her hands in the porcelain sink. Good grief. Privies in the area she was speaking of were built over holes in the ground. They had no sink. You washed up either back at the house or at a wash basin set outside.
ReplyDeleteI wonder why authors think their readers know nothing!
DeleteHistorical inaccuracies drive me nuts! And I hate in modern movies and shows that everyone has straight white teeth and tweezed eyebrows too...
ReplyDeleteEveryone is always too clean in films set in history!
DeleteI do so agree with all the anachronisms. I think it should be compulsory for all books set before 1970 to be proof read by a pensioner!
ReplyDeleteIt drives me mad too. My husband often has to put up with me reading out offending passages in an outraged voice.
ReplyDelete