Passage Summary: A writer is accused of stealing a story, but he claims he couldn't have because he doesn't speak the language it was written in and there were no reviews available to tell him what the story was about.

Conclusion: It was impossible for Mikkeli to have plagiarized Halden's book.

Reasoning: Mikkeli cannot read Norwegian, which is the only language the book is published in, and there are no published reviews of the book for him to have read.

Analysis: The defense relies on a significant gap: it assumes that reading the book or a review are the only two ways Mikkeli could have learned the plot. To make the argument work, we must assume there were no other channels of information, such as a friend telling him the story or seeing a translation that wasn't 'published.' Look for an answer that eliminates these alternative methods of access. If he could have learned the plot through a third party, the defense's claim of 'impossibility' falls apart.