The latest offering in the Mammoth series—now 53 titles and counting—is this collection of 39 stories that challenge, with variable success, the bromide that you need a novel to unfold a courtroom drama properly. Among the experts submitting exhibits (half from 1955–99, half brand-new) in support of editor Hemmingson (The Mammoth Book of Short Erotic Novels, 2000) are Louis Auchincloss, Madison Smartt Bell, Mat Coward, Martin Edwards, Erle Stanley Gardner, Graham Greene, John Lutz, James Powell, Irwin Shaw, Henry Slesar, and Carolyn Wheat. No word yet whether the excerpts from novels by James Grippando, John Grisham, and Scott Turow should be allowed in evidence.
