Lloyd Grove’s column has the details:
Dalia Gal claims in a lawsuit that Clark’s book, “The Second Time Around,” recycled the plot, key scenes and characters, and even character names from Gal’s screenplay about intrigue in the drug industry.
Gal’s 2000 screenplay, “Immortalin,” was widely circulated in Hollywood, the suit says. Clark’s 2003 novel was a hardcover and paperback best seller for Simon & Schuster.
I can’t assess the charges without seeing the evidence, but given Clark’s longtime publishing history, the onus of proving plagiarism clearly falls on Gal, especially how a Hollywood screenplay got into the hands of New York-based Clark.
Especially after seeing the plot:
both works spotlight “a single female journalist’s investigation of an elaborate conspiracy plot between two rival pharmaceutical companies to create a miracle drug, [and] a scientist working on the miracle drug [who] disappears,” while the scientist’s “wife is having a secret relationship with the head of the rival pharmaceutical corporation, and plays a role in the conspiracy against her husband.”
Hardly anything unique about this in the fields of pop fiction.
(Hat tip: Galleycat)
