Though it's easy to make a joke that the grande dame has been writing the same book over and over for years, the new lawsuit launched against her is no laughing matter -- at least not if you're talking to Israeli screenwriter Dalia Gal.

As Lloyd Grove details in his Lowdown column today, Gal claims that Clark's 2003 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" and that the similarities can only be explained as "a deliberate copying."

Clark denies the charges. "Before this lawsuit was filed, I had never heard of Ms. Gal and certainly never saw her screenplay," she told Lowdown. "Her allegations are blatant nonsense and patently untrue."