Plagiarism is the worst sin for any writer. True, critics of Ian McEwan have only argued that he “copied” the work of the “queen of the hospital romance”, Lucilla Andrews, but the implication amounts to the same thing.

“Booker prize-winning novelist is a fraud” is the message, with an unsung and now conveniently deceased author his secret weapon.

And yet: not quite. Despite the accusations aired in The Mail on Sunday yesterday, it is admitted that there is an acknowledgement of Andrews’ work in Atonement, alongside acknowledgements of other sources. That, I find myself thinking, is what novelists do when they choose to take on historical subject matter: research is the name for this work.

At the time when Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh were suing Dan Brown for his Da Vinci Code millions, a friend of mine (and no friend of Brown) remarked that if you write a novel about the height of Everest, you can’t be sued by the man who measured the mountain. It is interesting that the Da Vinci Code case came up at about the time the film was due to be released, as is the case here. Andrews, one gathers, wasn’t bothered by what McEwan had done. I find myself wondering in whose interest anyone in this argument is acting.

Beryl Bainbridge’s novel The Birthday Boys is about the fateful British expedition to the South Pole; did Bainbridge “copy” Captain Scott? I think not. Did she, for that matter, “copy”, say, Walter Lord in writing about the maiden voyage of the Titanic in Every Man for Himself? Again, no.

Zadie Smith admits that On Beauty is in conversation with Howards End; Graham Swift’s Last Orders echoes Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying — though Swift, too, had the plagiarism charge levelled unfairly at him. It seems to me that McEwan has done all he ought to have done. As they used to say: where’s the beef?

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