Yesterday I ran into one of The Eight by accident. We did the hello/idle chatter thing for a moment and she dropped a bombshell.

She works with law enforcement via the criminal court system. Intrigued by techniques the villain used to frustrate ballistics, she sought the counsel of a police officer. Interestingly, this was no vanilla beat cop. He’s on the SWAT team, and former member of the narcotics desk. The officer confirmed all the techniques the villain used would work, and caught a small glitch that while feasible, was inconsistent with the character. Based on the page he read, he wants to chat. I’m meeting with him after Thanksgiving. Sweet.

And there’s more from The Eight. A frantic IM came in last night from another pre-submit reader. He identified a separate inconsistency with the villain. It was tiny, but when he pointed it out, suddenly the problem flared like a bottle rocket.

Bottom line: The Eight rules. Oh yeah, and people like reading about criminals.