Trial attorney Bob Steadman, 93, was inspired to write I Killed Sam, inspired by his ground-breaking defense of a battered woman in 1957, when most of the country accepted and supported spouse abuse. 

Despite the long, legal odds, fictional attorney Bob Nichols attempts a never-before-tried-strategy of positing a dual defense, which, on the surface, appears contradictory: self-defense and temporary insanity. This novelized account of the Flint, Michigan, trial is more than a legal trial, replete with unexpected plot turns and the drama of a young, small-town lawyer trying to juggle his obligations to his client and his fledgling law practice. 

There’s also romance—Nichols is in love with Betty, the defendant and his high school sweetheart, whom he realizes he should never have let go. Nichols is tortured by the thought of losing his long- shot, legal gamble, which would mean forever losing Betty to a life sentence in prison.