The Solomon Scandals novel, set amid the Washington muck, bears the same title as ABC-TV’s similarly located Scandal series, except for the “The,” the “Solomon,” and the “s”

Big differences I’ve seen so far? The book, though fiction, takes on The System. ABC is less serious-uppity. Also, Scandals’s Jonathan Stone dedicates himself to getting stories into the papers, while Scandal’s Olivia Pope (played by Kerry Washington) works to keep them out.

Published in 2009 by Twilight Times Books, as a trade paperback and e-book, the novel predates the unrelated series.

Both the book and Shonda Rhimes’s series have mentioned the gift of a dog in a scandalous context—almost surely a coincidence at ABC’s end, nothing else. Both also mention a suicide (a suspected suicide, actually, in the TV series’ case). That doesn’t count, however; it comes with the scandals territory, with or without the s. No problem!

I’ll worry a little more about a rip-off if a high-rise collapse or a threatened collapse pops up during the ABC series, or if the Rhimes show focuses at length on real estate-related corruption at the General Services Administration. I doubt that either will happen; Washington, D.C., has plenty of muck to go around.

Just as in the novel, GSA’s administrator recently resigned. It was over the waste of hundreds of thousands of tax dollars in Las Vegas, not an office building scandal in the D.C. area, although at least some of the perps came from the Public Buildings Service, the GSA division featured in The Solomon Scandals.

Addendum, 6:20 p.m.: I watched a preview of Episode Two on my iPad. No overlaps this time beyond the title. And very cleverly stitched together even if it isn’t immortal art.