What gets me wound up are the easily avoided errors that well known writers make. Especially firearms related, and especially the same error over and over.
Let's take James Patterson for example. He has most of his law enforcement characters carrying Glocks. Novel after novel they are forever clicking off the safety, or putting their Glocks on safe.
In others you'll have revolvers have the safety clicked on and off, or characters told it has a "full mag." another fav is officers racking the slide on their handgun to chamber a round prior to going into a dangerous situation. I don't know ANY department that has officers carry their duty weapon with the chamber empty.I know Patterson has received letters regarding these goofs, they disrupt the flow of the page. (I wrote him via his publisher myself.) The errors continue thru all his series.
When I find writers who invest the efforts to get the facts right... I stick with them. Some write what they know, and pay consultants who are experts in what they don't, to proofread for factual or procedural mistakes. If Patterson himself came to me and asked me to provide this service since I wrote and pointed out a few errors. I would thank him, but decline. I would point him to my LE Rabbi, who has a depth of firearms knowledge that is impressive. He is also a retired Patrol Sergeant, with nearly thirty years behind the badge. That way, the man would get a twofer... Guns and police procedure.
