Little, Brown Pulls Assassin of Secrets From Bookstores in Plagiarism Scandal

Posted on November 8, 2011

Little, Brown has pulled the novel Assassin of Secrets by Q.R. Markham from shelves after it discovered that large chunks of the book had been plagiarized from James Bond novels, and books by Robert Ludlum and Charles McCarry. The publisher did not point out the plagiarized passages.

The New York Times reports that the spy novel was released last week by Mulholland Books, an imprint of Little, Brown. Michael Pietsch, the publisher of Little, Brown, said in a statement: "We take great pride in the writers and books we publish and tremendous care in every aspect of our publishing process, so it is with deep regret that we have published a book that we can no longer stand behind. Our goal is to never have this happen, but when it does, it is important to us to communicate with and compensate readers and retailers as quickly as possible."

6,500 copies of the book have already been printed. Q.R. Markham is the owner of Spoonbill & Sugartown Booksellers, a store in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. His real name is Quentin Rowan. Bookstores and customers may return the book (which had good reviews) for a full refund. So far, no one has explained how the plagiarism was discovered.