Hurrah for the internet, which has unmasked and brought down another plagiariser: in this case a romance "writer" going under the name of Kay Manning. Her uncovering came courtesy of a crack team of authors: first Liz Fielding, who posted about a short story of hers which she'd discovered had been plagiarised. "All Kay Manning has done is change the names of the characters, change the location and minor details," wrote Fielding. "Why, I cannot imagine, since she's giving it away free. To have her name on a successful story, perhaps? To build a reputation she can use to sell her own work?" Manning apparently responded to the accusation, claiming the situation was the result of "an honest mistake". "I put this story in the wrong folder on my computer and actually thought it was mine that I started a long time ago. If I really wanted to 'steal it' do you honestly think I would have put it up for free?" she asked.

Perhaps. But then Elizabeth Chadwick entered the fray, uncovering a host of other works which Manning had seemingly lifted. Here, for example, is A Soldier's Valentine from Manning:

Captain Shawn 'Iceman' Isaacs hurtled out of the military cargo plane, the crew chief's order to jump from the C-17 echoing in his ears along with the roaring of engines. The silent sky swallowed him. Arms and legs splayed, he soared down, down, down toward Fryar Drop Zone, the part of Fort Benning Military Reservation located in Alabama. Somewhere in the soft fields below Tammy Lowe waited for him.

And here's Catherine Mann's An Evening to Remember:

Captain Vince 'Novocain' Novak hurtled out of the military cargo plane, the crew chief's order to jump from the C-17 echoing in his ears along with the roaring of engines. Then the silent sky swallowed him. Arms and legs splayed, he soared down, down, down toward the landing zone at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida. A speck of grass in Tampa where McKenzie Rowe waited for him.

(I especially love the name changes – Tammy Lowe and McKenzie Rowe, Iceman and Novocain…)

Others joined in, discovering other pen names and other examples of plagiarism, and Fielding reported that "within hours of blogging that my story had been plagiarised the guilty party has closed her blog to all but the invited, removed her Twitter account and all the books she purported to have written have been removed from Smashwords".

After her initial denials, the plagiariser then executed an astonishing volte face, holding her hands up to her actions with a post on the Dear Author romance writing blog admitting to everything. "To all the authors, publishers, and editors I stole from, I am sorry. There is no excuse. All distributors have been notified and those I couldn't take down/remove myself are being removed by the third party as soon as possible," she wrote. "Finally, so there is no misunderstanding. I am a thief, a plagiarist. I am not an author." Indeed.

This example of plagiarism isn't as dramatic – or as ridiculous – as that of QR Markham, the "author" who pieced together his lauded debut from an amalgamation of spy thrillers. But it's almost more worrying, showing just how easy it is to do this. Let's remember, though, that Markham, too, was uncovered by assiduous readers: the internet might make it easier to pass others' work off as your own, but it also makes it easier to discover plagiarism, and for word to spread. So hurrah, as well, for Fielding and Chadwick and all those who helped them out.