Vendetta

What really irritates me about Steve Berry and James Rollins is their frequent use of 'may' instead of 'might' in reported speech. As in, "He thought that he may go mad."

Don't they have any half-decent editors left these days? 'May' and 'might' are often interchangeable, except in a handful of cases — one of which is where 'might' acts to indicate something reported as a past event.

That is why Steve Berry's latest, The Paris Vendetta, gets a special place in Purgatory from me. It is a pretty fun read, a sort of mindless Dan Brownish romp through Paris and a few other points of light, with billions of dollars in treasure and a fair amount of world peace at stake. But I encountered the may/might problem at least a dozen times.

Argh! And I'm quite sure these are not the only offenders. If I had them in my angry little fists, I might kill them both. Might, not may. [See also: past subjunctive mood, modal auxiliary.]