Laura Lippman

When Terry McMillan published "Waiting to Exhale" in 1992, it was a game-changer. It sold 4 million copies, spent 38 weeks on the bestseller list, and showed the publishing world that there was an audience for the stories of intelligent, successful, flawed and still-struggling women who were solidly middle-class and black.

It was the crime writer, on Amazon, under an assumed name, stabbing his fellow novelists in the back. The plot was uncovered earlier this month by thriller writer Jeremy Duns, who revealed the poison penmanship in a series of tweets. “This is RJ Ellory writing about his own book. And he has done this for them all, and yes, I’m proving it in the next few minutes,” Duns tweeted, before exposing Ellory’s pseudonyms. Ellory confessed, and the ensuing scandal prompted hundreds of writers to sign a pledge condemning sock puppetry.