The story, as usual, was very good.
But I was disgusted by the poor quality of copy editing and
proofreading.
Here below is a list of the mistakes I
found in my edition (ISBN 978-1-84737-654-1). And who knows how many
I missed, because when I went back to the pages I had marked, I had
some difficulties in identifying the mistakes I had seen the first
time.
Page 145: After a few minutes he set
the alarm on his watch, turned off the bedside lamp, glanced at the
loaded pistol, ... What? In the dark? Shouldn’t he first
glance at the pistol and then switch the lamp off?
Page 272: The name Ohlmeyer
becomes Ohimeyer.
Page 284: “Do want to walk up
seven flights of stairs to go to the bathroom?” Who would say
that? There should be a “you” between “Do” and “want”.
Page 290: “... you know how they
can be when they’re upset. The don’t play
nice. ...” Clearly, it should be “They don’t play
nice”.
Page 305: Stansfield had been
associates deputy director... Shouldn’t
associates be singular?
Page 310: He woke up with a start,
his heart pounding out of his chest, covered with sweat.
Clearly, it was not his heart that was covered with sweat, but this
is bad writing.
Page 402 - 1: As his deputy sat in
the aisle seat next to him, he noted the way Shvets glanced at his
glass of vodka, barely able to hide his contempt. This is bad
writing, because you need to interpret the sentence in order to
understand it. “his glass” refers to the boss’s glass, while
“his contempt” refers to the deputy’s contempt. You only
understand that Shvets is not glancing at his own glass of vodka when
you read on.
Page 402 – 2: In “Well
try, ...” , an apostrophe between “We” and “ll” is
missing.
Page 405: The punched,
grabbed, and pulled, finally yanking him from the space... A The
instead of a They, like on page 290.
Page 421 – 1: “... More than
fifty million dollars was stolen. ...” Is
that how Americans (or American-speaking Russians, as the speaker was
Shvets) speak? I doubt it. It should have been More than fifty
million dollars were stolen.
Page 421 – 2: Shvets wanted to get
out here with his life... It doesn’t make
much sense. I’m pretty sure that it should have been Shvets
wanted to get out of there with his life.
Such a long series of mistakes in a
“number one bestseller”. This truly is a mass-market paperback.
These monopolistic and overbearing publishers are so eager to earn
their millions that, despite their resources, they rush books out
full of mistakes. What a shame!
This is the second time I list mistakes
made by Vince Flynn (see Authors' Mistakes #4).
