Tiptoeing Through The Research

I was sitting in bed last night, reading a crime book set in Leeds of the 1920s, and suddenly uttered expletives so loud that I woke Oberon.  A small inaccuracy in the scene setting had exasperated me way beyond its worth – one tiny phrase that had no bearing on the plot, but had me questioning the entire book.

Picture the scene:  A young woman walking with her father in a wooded section of the garden and they have sat down to talk on a bench.  Fine so far.

Then she (the character)  took a few steps along the path  and (here comes the clunker)   tells us that (quote):

“A branch of mistletoe caught my skirt. I stopped to untangle myself.”

She caught her skirt on some mistletoe growing by the side of the path? Really? Or were she and her father suddenly tiptoeing through the treetops?

Now I may well be wrong, but thus far I have only ever seen Common European Mistletoe growing high up among the tree branches…

I am not at all keen to  finish the book.  All interest had evaporated right there on page 23. Perhaps I will get back to it at some point. But somehow I doubt it.