Quentin Rowan, the novelist who wrote under the pen name Q.R. Markham, explained why he plagiarized numerous spy novels for his debut book.
His confession came in an email to spy novelist Jeremy Duns—follow this link to read the whole email. Last week, Little, Brown pulled Assassin of Secrets after allegations of plagiarism first surfaced.
Here’s an excerpt from Rowan’s email: “Once the book was bought, I had to make major changes in quite a hurry, basically re-write the whole thing from scratch, and that’s when things really got out of hand for me. I just didn’t feel capable of writing the kinds of scenes and situations that were asked of me in the time allotted and rather than saying I couldn’t do it, or wasn’t capable, I started stealing again. I didn’t want to be seen as anything other than a writing machine, I guess. Some call it ‘people pleasing.’ Anyway, the more I did it, the deeper into denial I went, until it felt as if I had two brains at war with each other.”