Salon.com > Quentin Rowan http://www.salon.com Fri, 24 May 2013 10:45:00 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 A plagiarist’s lame excuse: Addiction made me do it http://www.salon.com/2011/12/01/a_plagiarists_lame_excuse_addiction_made_me_do_it/ http://www.salon.com/2011/12/01/a_plagiarists_lame_excuse_addiction_made_me_do_it/#comments Thu, 01 Dec 2011 16:30:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=10275961 Quentin Rowan had the briefest run ever as an acclaimed thriller writer. "Assassin of Secrets" was published this fall by Little, Brown under the pen name Q.R. Markham. But it was quickly discovered that the author's name wasn't the only unreal thing about him. "Assassin of Secrets" -- a "quirky, entertaining spy thriller" -- cut and pasted whole chunks of books by spy masters Charles McCarry, Robert Ludlum, John Gardner and Adam Hall.

Little, Brown recalled and pulped the book, issuing the mortified admission that they had "published a book that we can no longer stand behind." Rowan's nerviest steals, laid out in exhausting detail on Reluctant Habits, suggest he was unaware of the existence of Google. Of course he was going to be found out. So why did he do it?

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