Upton told the jury in closing that because I write fiction, I could not be expected to tell the truth. At least one review of The Scam picks out the theme that took most work of all, how abused wife Sarah gets out of her abusive marriage without starting a war, which she could have done. This is a rape scene, and it was most important to the story. The Scam was also was assessed from strict feminist and other women's viewpoints. Fool women are shown as fools, brute men are made plain.
Good examples are good irrespective of gender.
This new work is a kidnap story, with some scenes that are meant to be scary, worse than anything in The Scam, but as usual by suggestion rather than gory detail, crediting the reader with imagination and intelligence. I was certain and afraid that some of these scenes would be used. Former judge Michael Guest has said that the judge, the late John Rabone, should have stopped the trial when Upton introduced the book, even if defence counsel John Billington did not object. I had warned Billington of common fallacies about writers, and insisted that expert evidence be called about the distinction between fact and fiction, but he scorned this. So the jury was sent out with a copy of the book to read and the admonition to the effect that because I write fiction, they could not expect me to tell the truth.