The Art of Murder

The Art of Murder by Michael White was given to us by a friend who had said of the book that 'it was not one that he would normally read'. The cover looked encouraging and with the comment in mind I started to read it.
Okay, it has some extraordinary detail of murders that are linked to a common source of inspiration. This part of the book is set in modern day, but there are chapters in the book that tell a story of the late 1800's. I thought that this was acceptable to start with, but it soon became tiresome, but with reading on I felt that it was justified and came to an interesting conclusion. However I became impatient and I wanted to get right back to the book's present.
Authors seem to revel in the rudeness of commands and those of 'officer level' treat their underlings with a lack of respect, deliver orders 'off the cuff' for them to be undertake at super human speed and in an extremely unlikely time frame. That style irks me and then there is the person at the top of the hierarchical pile 'breathing down the neck' of the one below who also does the same heavy breathing onto the investigating DCI's neck who then passes his ire onto his unfortunate staff. Why? What does it add to the story?
It could help build a character and help create an image in the reader's mind, but it doesn't do that for me. It irritates me. In fact I did not bond with any character.
Then on a page under half way I found an event that made me scream out ' you don't do that'.
That does not happen. In the latter half of the book I found discrepancies and even absurd comments. The reality of some facts are not correct.
Micheal White has created and collected some great ideas and in the general sense the plots work well. It is an interesting read and I will not say anything else as I am not a 'plot spoiler'.