No, there wasn't an inconsistency in that case, because those of us old to remember know that "local" calls didn't show up on phone records. ONLY long distance records. So in "Excercise" that was a non-starter because the call from Gene would have been "local".

OTOH, in "Murder By The Book" Ken Franklin plays everything very carefully because he knows what calls will and won't show up in phone records.

1-He knows a call by Jim from the office to his wife is a "local call" and won't show up in the records. Thus if Jim tells his wife he's calling from the office, the police won't check that.

2-OTOH, a call from his house to Jim's wife *will* be in the phone records. That's the reason why Ken makes the call to Jim's wife from Lily La Sanka's before he commits the murder. So that way if the phone records are checked, and it shows a call from his place to Jim's wife, the explanation would be to say the call that he really placed from Lily's was the one that came from his house (Ken would not think the police would have any reason to check for a call placed from Lily's. And keep in mind, your phone bill would not indicate where a call you received came from, unless it was a collect call).