Evidence

I am reading Jonathan Kellerman's latest novel, Evidence. I am an avid reader of this author's books and have read all of the Alex Delaware novels. But I've found factual errors in every one. Some are glaring, others aren't. The problem is that they distract me from the plot.

Here are the ones I found in this book.

Page 5: "He'd brought a good lunch today, roast beef sandwich from Arby's, too bad there was nothing to heat the gravy with."

I've eaten at Arby's and they do have roast beef sandwiches, but I've never seen one on the menu which includes gravy. I looked at the Arby's website and they have sausage and biscuits with gravy, but no roast beef sandwiches with gravy. So where did this guy get the gravy?

Page 65: "We found some soda cans toward the back of the property, dented and rusty, like they've been there for a while."

They must have been there for a very long while. Most soda cans have been made of aluminum since the early 1970's and aluminum doesn't rust.

And lastly, on pages 142-143, there is some discussion about $50,000 in $50 bills. "Two large suitcases full."

No. That's totally wrong. $50,000 in $50 bills is a total of 1,000 bills. A bill is 0.0043 in thickness. A stack of 1000 bills would be less than five inches high. "Two large suitcases" would not be required.

I know I am being picky, but why can't authors (and their editors) catch these factual mistakes before the book is published? They're not huge errors, but they detract from the story.