Kathy Reichs

Kathy Reichs books - Just read the two most recent - "Flash and Bones" and "Bones are Forever." Not bad, though the large print edition have numerous typos. The one thing that really annoys me is in both books she refers to the press as the "Fifth Estate." It's the Fourth.

I enjoy reading. Mistakes in books seem to leap out at me, so I've begun making notes of them. I am not a writer and am not here to critique writing, only to point out mistakes in editing.

No Way Back, by Michael Crow

No Way Back by Michael Crow
Harper Collins ISBN 0-06-072583-4

pg 7
find the the sense of it
the the

pg 43
Westley's got me taped to the millimeter
typed? tapped?

pg 110
Only Nadya seems usually cheerful and sassy
unusually? her usual...self?

pg 150
mare's tales
tails

pg 190
I know something certain Allison does not
for certain?

pg 218
those dirty shamless sluts
shameless

pg 242
sinicized
is that a word?

pg 261
no worse, I guess, then some Rust Belt cities
than

pg 262
a neighborhood where out-of-towners are seldom seem
seen

Taking Lottie Home, by Terry Kay

Taking Lottie Home by Terry Kay
Harper Collins ISBN 0-688-17646-1

pg 118, and throughout
the Kentucky mountains
the area around Bowling Green is not by any stretch of the imagination mountainous.

pg 169
I kept telling him not till, but he wouldn't listen
not to

pg 243
They were the worse kind, he thought.
worst

Cross Country, by James Patterson

Cross Country by James Patterson
Little, Brown and Company ISBN 978-0-316-01872-2

I found no mistakes in this book, though I got the distinct impression some writer less experienced than Patterson wrote it. Weird. Just small odd things like the narrator using lots of exclamation points. Did not "feel" like a Patterson book.

Now what?

Either I've gotten less observant lately, or I've hit a series of books with good editing.

I gave up on Cloudsplitter, couldn't get "into" it. My other half said the same thing about the book.

Next in my list, in no particular order:
(update June 4th, I've bolded the ones I've read)
Terry Kay: Taking Lottie Home
Michael Crow: No Way Back
John Grisham: The Associate
James Patterson: Cross Country
James Lee Burke: Swan Peak
John Sandford: Dead Watch
Best of the Oxford American
Best American Short Stories 2007
Barbara Kingsolver: Homeland and Other Stories
Neil Gaiman: Fragile Things
Kurt Vonnegut: Cat's Cradle

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larrson

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
Vintage Books / Random House ISBN 978-0-307-47347-9

I found no mistakes in this book.

City of Thieves, by David Benioff

City of Thieves by David Benioff
Plume / Penguin Group ISBN 978-0-452-29529-2

I found no mistakes in this book.

Shutter Island, by Dennis Lehane

Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane
Harper Collins ISBN 978-0-06-170325-6

pg 210
Teddy and Chuck watched ...rock a jeep off its side. When they tried the ignition, it started on the fifth try, and they roared (away).

I think if you started any internal combustion engine that had laid on its side for more than a couple hours, you'd have a real danger of the engine seizing up (because the oil would drain out), if you could get it started at all.

The Lost, by J.D. Robb

The Lost by J.D. Robb
Berkley / Penguin ISBN 978-0-515-14718-6

pg 12
last line, "canteen's." Erroneous apostrophe.

pg 42
don't kill in a room with only one out
with only one way out

pg 259
like ...a shark biding its time until it could pounce.
Cats, dogs, lions, wolves, etc "pounce." Sharks don't.

11,000 Years Lost, by Peni R. Griffin

11,000 Years Lost by Peni R. Griffin
Amulet / Abrams / La Martiniere ISBN 0-8109-4822-2

I found no mistakes in this book.

Armageddon in Retrospect, by Kurt Vonnegut

Armageddon in Retrospect by Kurt Vonnegut
G.P. Putnam's Sons ISBN 978-1-60751-143-4

I found no mistakes in this book.

Knit the Season, by Kate Jacobs

Knit the Season by Kate Jacobs
G.P. Putnam's Sons ISBN 978-0-399-15638-0

pg 89
First sentence on the page is a fragment. Should be more like, "...she hesitated, freshly aware..."

pg 134
last paragraph on the page does not have a transition from her being in the front room with them, to "flopped down on her bed." It's as if her bed is in the living room.

pg 197
marked the page that there was a mistake, but can't find it now.

Mother Night, by Kurt Vonnegut

Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut
Delta ISBN 0-385-33414-1

I found no mistakes in this book.

How She Knows What She Knows About Yo-Yos, by Mary Ann Taylor-Hall

How She Knows What She Knows About Yo-yos by Mary Ann Taylor-Hall
Sarabande ISBN 1-889330-37-X

pg 87
marked the page that I'd found a mistake, but now I can't identify it.

South of Broad, by Pat Conroy

South of Broad by Pat Conroy
Doubleday / Random House ISBN 978-0-385-41305-3

pg 149
"Leo found my sister and I handcuffed to chairs..."

my sister and me

pg 206
...as Murray helps us get our luggage inside the ornate entryway.

nitpicking, but "inside" seems the wrong word for the situation. Like the luggage is going into the walls, or something.

Homer's Odyssey, by Gwen Cooper

Homer's Odyssey by Gwen Cooper
Delacorte Press ISBN 978-1-61664-199-3

I found no mistakes in this book

I'm not here to critique, just to edit, but I have to say, this one will haunt me like Black Beauty has, for the rest of my life, I'm sure.

Rough Country, by John Sandford

Rough Country by John Sandford
G. P. Putnam's Sons / Penguin Group ISBN 978-0-399-15598-7

I found no mistakes in this book

Scavenger, by David Morrell

Scavenger by David Morrell
Vanguard Press ISBN 978-1-59315-441-7

pg 144
"It's what caught my intention..."

attention

pg 204
Costs extra You do it through your home computer...

missing punctuation

So Brave, Young, and Handsome, by Leif Enger

So Brave, Young, and Handsome by Leif Enger
Atlantic Monthly Press / Grove/Atlantic ISBN 978-1-60751-199-1

pg 139
Perhaps there was still time to keep my own hazy outline from becoming permanent.

I think he means impermanent, permanently hazy, something else than how it reads

pg 192
Siringo didn't answer but less than an hour he reined up

in less than an hour; less than an hour later, etc

Mother Road, by Dorothy Garlock

Mother Road by Dorothy Garlock
Doubleday / Warner Books ISBN 0-7394-3547-7

I found no mistakes in this book

Bagombo Snuff Box, by Kurt Vonnegut

Bagombo Snuff Box by Kurt Vonnegut
Berkley Books ISBN 0-425-17446-8

I found no mistakes in this book

Sisters of the Raven, by Barbara Hambly

Sisters of the Raven by Barbara Hambly
Aspect / Warner Books ISBN 0-446-61536-6

I found no mistakes in this book

Homeland, by R. A. Salvatore

Homeland R. A. Salvatore
Wizards of the Coast ISBN 978-0-7869-3953-4

pg 26
Every now and came a killing flash

now and then?

pg 121
"Just what the first house needs more clerics!"

needs a comma

An Innocent Client, by Scott Pratt

An Innocent Client Scott Pratt
Onyx / Penguin Group ISBN 978-0-451-41265-2

pg 232
floosies

floozies

A Stained White Radiance, by James Lee Burke

A Stained White Radiance James Lee Burke
Harper Collins ISBN 978-0-380-72047-7

pg 10
neutrias

nutria is the singular and plural (no 'e', no 's')

pg 31
Tripod zigzagged back and forth on his chin

chain

pg 124
"It's really good." It was, too. Ham and onion and horseradish, one of my favorites."

there's either one too many or one too few quotation marks in the line

pg 181
neutria

nutria

pg 282
Gerardo Rivera

Geraldo

2009 Best American Short Stories, edited by Alice Sebold

The Best American Short Stories 2009 Alice Sebold, ed.; Heidi Pitlor, series ed.
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt ISBN 978-0-618-79225-2

pg 28
the plastic in box

inbox, or in-box

pg 133
"...but maybe he's thinking, Thanks for the hand but he's on top of it."

need some more quotation marks in there

Elsewhere, by William Peter Blatty

Elsewhere by William Peter Blatty
Cemetery Dance Publications ISBN 978-1-61523-582-7

pg 25
about a tenth of mile

left out another 'a'

The Broker, by John Grisham

The Broker by John Grisham
Doubleday / Random House ISBN 0-385-51045-4

I found no mistakes in this book

Road Dogs, by Elmore Leonard

Road Dogs by Elmore Leonard
William Morrow / Harper Collins ISBN 978-1-61523-826-2

pg 52
"There rich people and not rich people..."

They're, or there're, or they are or there are

pg 72
pg 79
that's what I get for waiting so long before entering these... now I can't find what I thought was wrong on these pages.

pg 129
should have quotation marks around the sentence at the bottom of the page --where he's thinking to himself-- to set it off from what he's not thinking.
"No, you don't go back, you go straight ahead."

pg 130
?

pg 185
making a Uey

not sure, but shouldn't that be U-ey?

pg 217
Actually it's been, four.

pause for effect? Comma doesn't belong.

now reading...

Road Dogs, by Elmore Leonard (several mistakes)

The Farmer's Daughter, by Jim Harrison (no mistakes)

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Díaz (no mistakes)

A Stained White Radiance, by James Lee Burke (several mistakes)

Crusader's Cross, by James Lee Burke

Crusader's Cross by James Lee Burke
Simon and Schuster ISBN 978-0-7432-7720-4

pg 102 and throughout
"The Chalonses..."

although when speaking of Valentine Chalons and his family you'd pronounce it "Chalonses," you'd spell it Chalons'.

pg 137
He was sitting at a metal desk, in the middle of large room...

in the middle of "a" large room

pg 140
The rumors that he did business with the Giacanos were I'm sure true.

need some punctuation around "I'm sure"

pg 198
Her eyes lighted on the packages in the bed of my pickup

since she's sitting in a subcompact and "stopped abreast of me," it's unlikely she could see into the bed of the pickup.

pg 427
The guy was in his car at the Fair Grounds,

unnecessary capitalization

Zen and the Art of Knitting, by Bernadette Murphy

Zen and the Art of Knitting by Bernadette Murphy
Adams Media Corporation ISBN 1-58062-654-8

pg 118
A t-bone sits on a yarn, constructed plate

no comma after yarn; actually "yarn-constructed" would look better hyphenated.

pg 120
She was in bed recovering from wisdom teeth surgery

that would be wisdom tooth surgery, even when referring to more than one tooth.

pg 206
If you've never done it before, buy a pair of needles and experiment.

She's talking about knitting in the round, which is done on circular needles, which are referred to as "a needle," not "a pair of needles."

Paper Doll, by Robert B. Parker

Paper Doll by Robert B. Parker
G. P. Putnam's Sons ISBN 0-425-14155-1

pg 7
framing hammer... the kind with a long wooden handle

Framing hammers generally have a steel or fiberglass handle. Ball-peen hammers and mauls have wooden handles.

pg 77
He had on engineer's boots

they are called engineer boots. No possessive.

pg 159
"He at home?"
Farrell shook his head.
"Hospice," he said.

I assume Farrel shook his head no, but hospice is generally at home.

pg 189
...its wake a glassy furrow in the surface.

on the surface

..the trees, half unleaved, made spectral...

unleafed

pg 249
dog...jumped up on the couch... lay down between us.

Only Spenser is seated on the couch. Jefferson remained standing (see page 248).

This Perfect Day, by Ira Levin

This Perfect Day by Ira Levin
Hard-cover edition, published in 1970 by Random House.
Old enough edition there is no ISBN.

I found no mistakes in this book.

Ford County, by John Grisham

Ford County by John Grisham
Belfry Holdings, Inc - Doubleday - Random House ISBN 987-0-385-53245-7

pg 48
Leon latched the wheelchair into place with strips of packing twine

if he was using twine, he'd be lashing, not latching

pg 235
hundred and foty acres

typo, should be forty, not foty

Under the Dome, by Stephen King

Under the Dome by Stephen King
Scribner (a division of Simon & Schuster) ISBN 978-1-4391-4850-1

pg 124: Captain Barbara
pg 228: Lieutenant Barbara
pg 766: Lieutenant Barbara

It's highly improbable a Colonel would accidentally refer to a former Captain (one he'd just promoted to Colonel) as "Lieutenant."

pg 275
"There's the Dipper ... Cassiopeia ... the Great Bear.

the Dipper and the Great Bear are the same constellation (ursa Major). Granted, there's also a "little dipper," but when one leaves off the "big" or "little" designation one is referring to the big one.

pg 367
"Li'l Walter," the woman in the bloody jeans said again

she's wearing sweatpants, not jeans (see page 358)

pg 427
she had flushed all of her pills -- not just the methadone but a few last Oxycontin

methadone is liquid, not pill.

pg 429
A plastic hose was clamped to a valve on the back of tanker.

typo, left out the article "the" ...back of the tanker.

pg 433
He looked up and saw the Big Dipper, the Great Bear, Orion.

again, the big Dipper and the Great Bear are the same.
also, it's unlikely he'd see the Dipper and Orion at the same time. See: http://www.pixheaven.net/photo_us.php?nom=080927_7093-109traits

pg 513
"How about four counts of murder..."

at this time Big Jim doesn't know there are exactly four bodies.

pg 646
His good feeling... lasted until he pushed the flush-lever.

by now he should be out of water, just like his neighbors are.

pg 664
"Hell, his own son could have used it."

reads like he's referring to Coggins' son (Coggins doesn't have a son).

pg 815
...and then there was bark.

typo, "then there was a bark," or "then there was barking."

pg 854
every almost seat in the Town Hall was taken.

typo, "almost every," not "every almost."

pg 915
"Andy punched Jessie in the nose when Jessie wouldn't lend Andy his art-gum eraser."

if spelling is Jessie, it would be "her eraser." Male spelling with same pronunciation is Jesse.

pg 1025
"Was it a malfunction?" "No, it did not."

question should be "did it malfunction?" or the reply should be "No it was not."

Bad Business, by Robert B. Parker

Bad Business, by Robert B. Parker
G. P. Putnam's Sons - Penguin Group ISBN 0-399-15145-1

pg 27
"But its important that they don't coincide."

"its" is a contraction of "it is" and needs an apostrophe.

pg 50
"On the other hand," I said "people don't report gunfire anyway."

should be a comma after "said."

The Professional, by Robert B. Parker

The Professional by Robert B. Parker
G. P. Putnam's Sons - Penguin Group ISBN 978-0-399015594-9


pg 28
I refused to dress up to work out

refuse

pg 50
"You want me to come by and iron yours shirts, too?"

your

pg 104
"She knows, of course, and they remain friends, with a, necessarily, open marriage."

at least one too many commas.

pg 117
"Well, I guess I'd answer why would I be unmonogamous."

"why would I be monogamous." He's arguing against monogamy.

pg 137
"but in the circumstance, I was not at my most analytic."

"under the circumstances," unless he's trying to show she's somewhat illiterate?

pg 152
...still nodding to whatever music he was hearing in the spheres

what spheres?

pg 216
In the month she graduated from Tarbridge High School, she married a guy name Boley LaBonte, and divorced him a year later.

first, "in" is superfluous. "The month she graduated" is fine.
second, typo: should be "a guy named" not "a guy name"

pg 217
Up a hill past the red light

this is dialect, but not New England dialect. "past the traffic light," "past the light"

Lost Echoes, by Joe R. Lansdale

Lost Echoes by Joe R. Lansdale
Vintage Books - Random House Inc ISBN 978-0-307-27544-8

pg 1 (intro)
Bodies were found in a car at the bottom of a vine and brush-covered hill

need a hyphen after vine. "vine- and brush-covered"

pg 7
Big, rusted, humped-back bugs moving in extreme slow motion toward the concealment of the woods.

sentence fragment.

pg 7
There was an old woodstove that had been converted to gas

If that's not outright impossible, it would be way too expensive to consider, except maybe as a novelty project. Maybe it's an old electric stove that was converted to gas?

pg 41
(the hand) was short fingered and thick like a catcher's mitt, scarred all over from wrenches that slipped and slammed them into bolts and sharp-edged metal.

first, short fingered needs a hyphen.
second, the subject changes from the hand to the fingers. Better would be "and slammed it into bolts...", better yet would be "...like a catcher's mitt, the fingers scarred all over from..."

pg 116
Somewhere a police car made with a whoop-whoop sound.

"with" is unneccessary.

pg 163
watch when you zip up, least you hang the meat.

typo: "lest" instead of "least."

pg 229
while Talia made coffee

Talia isn't there. It's Kayla making the coffee.

pg 322
The chief parked the car at the edge of the cliff, put it in gear... "What I'd like you to do... is slide back behind the wheel, and then put it in gear..."

the chief probably took it out of gear, not "put it in gear."

in a recipe for Taco Seasoning Mix...

 
6 tsp child powder

chili? and instead of 6 tsp I might use 2 tbsp (same amount)

from the AP:

 
Slow-going on roads as snow storms hits East Coast

storms hits?

Ack! It's everywhere!

 
Just in the past 24 hours...

On about.com: Whose Celebirty Hair do you Covet?
Celebrity

On yahoo.com: Look Younger the Nautral Way
Natural

On a bag of lentils: sort and rise
rinse

Heart-Shaped Box, by Joe Hill

Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill
Harper Collins ISBN 9780739486313

I didn't find any copyediting mistakes in this book, with the exception of a couple apostrophes left off words that should have had them. Most of my notes are about facts gotten wrong.

pg 83
There must be some reason you're out here to kill yourself.

trying to kill yourself?

pg 106
The (jacked up) pickup sat almost a full foot off the ground

a foot is not high even for a standard full-size pickup, let alone one that is "jacked up"

pg 137
"I seen people treat a hotel room worst," he said. "Worst" instead of "worse." His own accent, which had become very slight...

I think the spelling and pronunciation you are looking for is "worset."

pg 167
The Denny's was loud and overcrowded... The bar, just to the right of the doors

googling this, thinking there has never been a Denny's serving alcohol, I did find a few... but I doubt any in rural Virginia do. I could be wrong.

pg 247
The garage had only just been framed, beams of new pine sticking up from the cement foundation and more beams crisscrossing overhead ... plywood panels nailed up between the beams...

Those are called two-by-fours, or studs, or uprights. Beams are almost always horizontal, and much larger - 8 x 8 or 12 x 12.

pg 307
Course it's been months since he could talk

'Course is an idiomatic contraction and needs an apostrophe

pg 354
Course, the way you look, and the condition he was in...

'Course needs an apostrophe

Mother of Pearl, by Melinda Haynes

Mother of Pearl by Melinda Haynes
Washington Square Press ISBN 0-671-77467-0

pg 2
Willie Brackett's blood was to his undershirt

on his undershirt? stuck to?

pg 2
Even saw the scar was healing up to that of question mark tilted to its side

I know what she means to say and I'm not sure if this is an attempt at dialect or if there is a word missing ("that of a question mark").

pg 2
when he was startled he took on a resemblance to that of dried-up mummy

of a dried-up mummy?

pg 58
He undid his jeans...three lines later He unzipped his jeans.

pg 80
still thinking on sow but not so much as before

the sow?

pg 156
find prosperity hand delivered

needs a hyphen "hand-delivered"

pg 192
"As I recall the Parden child was a newborn," he said, still looking down at his notebook and her shoes. "I bet she's easily a ten and a half. Possibly eleven. Wide width, too."

the 2nd bit in quotation marks is not spoken aloud.

pg 276
"'Cause your grandmother threw her knitting at her and stabbed the woman in the temple with a crochet needle...."

there are no crochet "needles," only crochet hooks. Knitting needle is what she meant to say.

pg 282
walking up and nudging Grace in the thigh like a stubborn angel, and she gave to it while she scratched out his head.

gave to it? Scratched out?

Skin Tight, by Carl Hiaasen

Skin Tight by Carl Hiaasen
Warner Books ISBN 0-446-69569-6

pg 4
houses...known as Stiltsville...and their kids got drunk on them in the summer.

I understand the houses are on stilts, therefore one is "on" the house rather than
"in" it, but this phrasing throughout the book is distracting.

pg 195
She rolled ever

rolled "over"

pg 270
He kissed her again. This was a good one.

a good kiss, or is he thinking she is a good one? "He kissed her again, making it a good one" or "He kissed her again, thinking, 'this is a good woman'?"

pg 415
and casted a bait over the side

cast

Smoke and Mirrors, by Neil Gaiman

Smoke and Mirrors by Neil Gaiman
Avon Books ISBN-13 978-0-380-78902-3

pg 184
As I reached her, one elegant hand swept up the cards, wrapped them in a silk scarf, placed them gently in a wooden box.

hard to imagine doing all that --especially the wrapping-- one-handed.

pg 339
I carried a silver basin, and a basket in which I had placed a sliver knife, a silver pin, some tongs, a gray robe, and three green apples. I put them on, and stood there, unclothed,

first, I assume she put on only the robe, or else put everything ON something... a windowsill, or a table.
second, if she put the robe, or everything, ON herself, then she was not unclothed. A confusing paragraph.

pg 339
took the red apples from the silver bowl

I understand the green apples turned red, but better phrasing might be, "the newly red apples," or "the apples that had become red"

Perfect Circle, by Sean Stewart

Perfect Circle by Sean Stewart
Small Beer Press ISBN 1-931520-11-9

pg 9
...turned out to be a homicidal maniac just bust out from a Louisiana prison

busted, or is "bust" as past tense acceptable as dialect?

pg 24
and sifted over one lane, letting traffic drift into place around us.

shifted? drifted?

pg 35
"You've got to do for me, Will."

got to do it, got to do this?

pg 89
The Lady and the Tramp

there is no leading "the" in that title

pg 225
...and arrived at the medical office where she worked just before noon

better wording could make it sound like she works there all day, not only "just before noon."

The Last Hotel for Women, by Vicki Covington

The Last Hotel for Women by Vicki Covington
Simon & Schuster ISBN 0-684-81111-1

pg 46
He's heard if you toss a penny from way up high, it'll growing heavier and heavier

keep growing? grow?

pg 68
Connor bolts from her chair

Connor is male, and might be bolting from beside her (Gracie's) chair, or from his own chair.

pg 132
He-
's

here and on other pages, contractions are split at lines' ends.

pg 205
I-
'm

split contraction

pg 269
it-
'd

split contraction

What it's about

Mistakes in books not only annoy me, they leap out at me. This blog is a list of the mistakes I find in the books I read. I'd like someone to hire me to do what I'll be doing here for free.