The Markham Affair

"Q.R. Markham." (Photo courtesy The Mysterious Bookshop.)
Last Wednesday night I was sitting in an Irish pub not far from the World Trade Center site, unwinding after a joint appearance at The Mysterious Bookshop. To my left was novelist Lawrence Block, one of my writing heroes. At one point our ultra-nerdy conversation turned to legendary thriller writer Robert Ludlum. Little did I know that within a week the person sitting to my right, Quentin Rowan, would be accused of plagiarizing material from Ludlum. As well as many other writers, including Ian Fleming, James Bamford, John Gardner, Geoffrey O'Brien and Charles McCarry.

News broke yesterday that Rowan, writing under the psuedonym "Q.R. Markham," lifted huge chunks of other books to cobble together his debut, Assassin of Secrets. Edward Champion, over at his blog Reluctant Habits, found more than two dozen instances of obscene plagiarism in the first 35 pages alone.

The whole affair leaves me feeling embarrassed, puzzled, and more than a little angry. Why?

Because I blurbed the fucking thing.


As I read it, nothing jumped out at me and screamed "plagiarism." Of the works Markham/Rowan apparently stole from, I've only read James Bamford's Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency, and I'm not one to memorize passages from a nonfiction book I read nearly 10 years ago. This is not an excuse; this is just letting you know why no alarm bells went off. When reading a novel for blurb purposes, I'm almost never thinking, Gee wonder if this guy ripped off anyone I've ever read...

But still, I'm mortified to be associated with this Frankenstein-ish heist job of a novel. If you purchased this book because of my blurb, I offer my sincere apologizes. Please return it immediately (you're still within most bookstores' two-week return window) and use your store credit to buy a Ludlum, Gardner, Fleming, or McCarry novel. Or Bamford's truly excellent Secrets. Or Geoffrey O'Brien's brilliant Fall of the House of Walworth, which I read (and loved) just last week.

I'm puzzled because I have no idea why Markham/Rowan thought he could get away with it. The guy's not just stealing a cool image here and there; as Champion has detailed, Markham/Rowan lifted huge, huge slabs of text. You could make the postmodern/pastiche argument, I suppose, but wouldn't a literary genius have the sense to let his editor and publisher in on the gag?

Nah, I'm pretty sure he was just stealing.

Which brings me to the anger part. I met Markham/Rowan briefly at the Mulholland Books party at Book Expo America this past spring, but didn't see him again until last Wednesday, when I chatted with him and his mother right before the event. At least, Markham/Rowan claimed that sweet woman was his mother. Who's to say?

Anyway... I'm angry because I can't help but think about what was going through his mind. Was he secretly laughing because he'd managed to dupe everybody in the room, from readers to editors to fellow writers to booksellers? Was he ticking down the moments until he was exposed... thinking that it might even be that very night? What was he thinking as he signed his name to those first copies, knowing that so many of the words beneath the title page belonged to other people?

Then again, Rowan wasn't even signing his own name.