TALES OUT OF SCHOOL
by Carolyn Wheat
Even though Wheat avers that “I never thought short stories were my forte,” the 19 stories (1989–99) assembled here, representing practically all of her shorter fiction, show that her crackerjack legal novels about Cass Jameson (Sworn to Defend, 1998, etc.) only hint at the range of her talents. Cass is here, of course, in “Three-Time Loser,” but so are Holmes and Watson, Marilyn and Joltin’ Joe, First Lady Abigail Adams, sensitive kids and victimized old ladies, and more cats than you dangle a mouse in front of, along with a mastery of tones from doomy to giddy.