OK, I figured it out. I followed the advice here to turn on MySQL logging (which took more doing that it should have), so I could see what's really being sent to MySQL. It wasn't choking on the query I posted in my message but a later one in which the string was not escaped. The red herring that led me astray was the line no. indicated in the error message that pointed to the query I posted (or at least seemed to).
Anyway, thanks for the tips that got me pointed in the right direction. Paul Paul S. Johnson
