Two years ago, Robert Ferrigno wrote a terrific novel called Prayers For The Assassin, set a decade or three hence when America is an “Islamic Republic”. The sequel, Sins Of The Assassin, is about to come out, but today the novelist has taken time out of his hectic publicity schedule to express his surprise at finding himself a footnote in my legal difficulties up north.

The official complaint about my “flagrant Islamophobia” filed by the Canadian Islamic Congress included my review of Mr Ferrigno’s book. As evidence of my “flagrant Islamophobia”, the authors claim I “asserted” the following:

1. American will be an Islamic Republic by the year 2040 – there will be a Muslim / Islamist takeover
2. As a result of the Muslim takeover, there will be a break for prayers during the Super Bowl, the stadium will have a stereotypical Muslim name, and the fans will be forced to watch the game in a Muslim prayer posture
4. As a result of the Muslim takeover there will an oppressive religious police enforcing Islamic/Muslim norms on the population, important US icons [such as the USS Ronald Reagan] will be renamed after Osama bin Laden, no females will be allowed to be cheerleaders, and popular American radio and television talk show hosts will have been replaced by Muslim imams…

Er, no. I didn’t “assert” that any of the above will happen. They are aspects of the plot of Robert Ferrigno’s book. A novel. A work of fiction. A creative art form. My column is a review of the novel. It is customary in reviewing novels to cite aspects of the plot.

But the plaintiffs, and presumably the “human rights investigators” to whom they took their complaint, apparently believe that describing the plot of a novel should be actionable. I wonder how, say, Margaret Atwood feels about that. A few years back, she wrote her own dystopian theocratic fantasy about an America renamed the Republic of Gilead and under the thumb of a Falwell-Schlaflyesque Christian tyranny. What’s to stop a Christian group taking a doting Atwood reviewer – or maybe the author herself – to a Canadian “human rights” kangaroo court? C’mon, you leftie novelists, what do you think there’ll be left for you to write about once the plot of a work of fiction becomes a recognized “hate crime”?