Fished in!

Scottish crime writer Ian Rankin admits he was only joking about J.K. Rowling working on a crime novel.

“This is a joke that got out of hand,” said Rankin, describing how the remark was made on stage during the course of a [Edinburgh] festival event.

“There were 600 people in the audience, and only one person didn’t laugh,” he added.

The AP and other wire services picked up the story, and it was all over the news last weekend. Good one, Ian, but you should have gone for romance novel!