May 21, 2013
The Devil’s in the Details
Having a good start to your summer? That’s nice, because a
lot of people around here aren’t. It’s like a real-life episode of “Scandal,”
though even Olivia Pope would have a hard time with the mess(es) popping up
every day. Rather than letting DC’s dirty underbelly get me down, though, I’ve
chosen to escape through reading. Specifically, through reading a political
thriller about DC’s dirty underbelly.
Wait a minute.
Sedition, recently (and perhaps still) offered as a free
Kindle book, is set in a DC where both the President and Vice President have
recently died. Since the VP-designee had not yet been sworn in when the
President died, there’s a bit of a Constitutional crisis. Who becomes
President? The VP, who had not yet taken the oath as required by the
Constitution? Or the Speaker of the House, as per the Presidential Succession
Act of 1947 and somewhat out of line with Article II, Section 1?
*dun dun DUUUUUNNNN*
I’m not gonna lie, this is heady stuff. Thankfully, the book
also includes a plot to kill most of the Cabinet, an intrepid NSA analyst, and
a few other twists and turns to sex things up a bit (yes, sometimes literally,
you perv). But I kept getting distracted from what promised to be an
interesting read by little mistakes. Not just the occasional typo or incorrect
homophone use; I’ve accepted that those are just more common in e-books. I’m
talking about things like a reference to 33rd and Constitution
Avenue, “just north of the Lincoln Memorial.” For one, the intersection just
north of the Lincoln Memorial is 23rd and Constitution Avenue. For
two, 33rd and Constitution Avenue doesn’t exist.
Then there was the reference to Blue Bell ice cream. For
people of the South, and Texas especially, Blue Bell is omnipresent. But it
wasn’t available in the DC area until March of this year. Even now, the closest
it comes is Stafford, Virginia. The character who allegedly ate it every night
lives near Fort Meade, Maryland. That must be some dedication to drive over a
hundred miles for ice cream.
I realize that this sort of thing probably annoys only me,
but I am my most valued constituency. On the off chance that any authors are
reading this, hear my plea: get a fact-checker. Heck, I’ll do it. I love to
read and edit; too few of my college friends took advantage of that. (This is
why they’re working as bank tellers and I’m working for a clandestine
government organization seeking to rid the world of evildoers.) Call me. Or,
um, email me. Because calling me would be weird; we don’t know each other like
that. Yet.








