Mystery Mistake

     My biggest pet peeve when reading any kind of mystery, cozy, paranormal, or thriller, is inept law enforcement. I don’t mean when the police, medical examiner, crime scene techs, and others ineptness is a plot point to be addressed later in the book. I know from true crime books and shows that crimes are often unsolved due to mistakes such as not securing the scene, mishandling evidence, not properly interviewing witnesses and suspects, among others. So, I understand authors include such incidents in their fictional narratives.  What I am talking about is when the author and editor have simply not done their research.  

For instance, in Dead Man Talking by T.M. Simmons a man is decapitated, when the head is found by the head homicide detective, he places it in a plastic shopping bag he found at the scene. While reading, questions arose, couldn't the bag have something inside that could rub off on the head and confuse investigators? Shouldn’t he have used an evidence bag or better yet treated the head like an entire body and called the coroner to collect it? Also, isn’t a body or body part disposal site a crime scene and needs to be processed as such?   

Now, if the author had the main character, who was not a cop, or perhaps an untrained cop do this, then I could buy that, but the head of homicide? Absolutely not, and again, this was not a plot point or character development. This guy was supposed to be a good, moral, competent police officer. This incident was not supposed to be seen as a mishandling of evidence, but it certainly was.  I understand not everyone is well versed in police procedure, but when an author is writing about murder shouldn't they research crime scene procedure?  If the author missed something, which, to be fair, is easy to do, shouldn’t the editor have caught it?  

This book is just one example of mystery books not being accurate when it comes to glossing over details concerning crime solving. I love the genre so much, but attention to detail makes or breaks a book for me.