Anyone who’s been charged with plagiarism knows there are two ways to save face. Either own up and claim you were making a statement, or deny and employ the ‘Great Minds’ defence, like I did when accused of copying Tacitus in my A-Level history coursework.
The funny thing about Q.R. Markham, whose much-hyped spy thriller has been pulped after readers discovered it was a patchwork of other novels, is that he’s stayed silent. Naturally, this has prompted others to invent their own theories as to what the Brooklyn bookseller, real name Quentin Rowan, was up to.
Assassin of Secrets – composed almost entirely of passages by other writers – has been variously perceived as a bizarre situationist prank, a comment on declining standards in publishing, and a misguided attempt to make a fast buck. A New Yorker reader even tried to mould Rowan into some sort of Che Guevara figure:
‘If a destitute person liberates an apple from a fruit stand, many are willing to turn a blind eye to such a crime.
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