The series consists of records relating to Peter Worthington's books and book-length works. It holds extensive documentation for Scapegoat: How the Army Betrayed Kyle Brown (Toronto: Seal Books, 1997) and an unpublished manuscript about Clifford Olson, but it also holds files on his autobiographical memoir, Looking for Trouble (Toronto: Key Porter Books, 1984), a cookbook co-authored with Ben Wicks, The Naked Gourmet (Toronto: Simon & Schuster, 1970), and unpublished manuscripts. The Scapegoat files document the Somalia incident (the death of Somali prisoner Shidane Arone while in the custody of the Canadian Airborne Regiment), the trial of Kyle Brown, and the Commission of Inquiry. They hold correspondence with Doubleday Books, Col. Michel Drapeau, and Scott Taylor of Esprit de Corps; transcripts of interviews with Brown; legal records of defence counsel Patrick McCann; drafts of the manuscript and articles about Brown, including his Saturday Night article "The Wrong Man"; clippings of news coverage; and photographs. In addition, the Scapegoat files hold official records such as the transcripts of court martial trials of Brown and others involved, the initial 1993 Board of Inquiry into the Airborne Regiment, and records relating to the 1995-1997 Commission of Inquiry into the deployment of Canadian Forces in Somalia, most of these documents are annotated by Worthington. Somalia-related material can also be found in the Sun media series.
The Olson book was never published due a disagreement with the publisher. Detailed correspondence with Simon & Schuster editors Claire Zion and Angela Kyle reveals their concerns about the manuscript and the cooling of the author-publisher relationship. There are draft chapters, successive versions of the manuscript, and the Saturday Night article, "The Journalist and the Killer". The records relating to Looking for Trouble in this series include correspondence with Anna Porter, book reviews, and promotional material. It also includes two unpublished manuscripts relating to his experiences in Russia and Africa and Asia, based largely on his experiences as a foreign correspondent.
