Some Continued Implausibilities in The Straw Men
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No chance that a Post-Church Commission CIA hires the protagonist.
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Little chance that the SAC who gives Nina a ride drives a Lexus.
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All internet sleuthing—very shaky.
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The mix-tape that Bobby comes up with.
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Confusion about the effects of heavy metal exposure.
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The various overt references to Thomas Harris and The X-Files only highlight the deficiencies in this story-world’s internal coherence, while apparently intending to do the opposite.
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Bobby as a character—his motivation in diegetic terms versus his obvious narrative function (information dumping).
It would be fascinating, I think, to track the editorial changes in this MS and others in the genre. I doubt that the Thomas Harris books were heavily edited, for example, at least not in major plot terms; but I suspect that this one may have been.